


Be comfortable, creature

by coefore



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Borderline Personality Disorder, Captivity, Gen, Minor Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:43:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 72,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coefore/pseuds/coefore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was hard to describe his life.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>To pick out the correct words to define the horror, the jarring pain, the disgust.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>It was hard to describe his damage.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And so, Jack decided he just wouldn’t.</i>
</p><p>An au in which shapeshifting to animals is a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: A Poor Man's Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Every title will be a song by Explosions In The Sky.
> 
> This came out after a lot of people gave me a very good feedback on my art I made of this au idea!  
> A big thanks to everyone on twitter and tumblr who support(ed) me and especially to Kate who's been editing a lot throughout the fanfiction!
> 
> EDIT as of 17/09/2016: I decided to move the work from T+ to M just to be sure. I also added some tags. Do suggest me things that might be in need of a tag!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVOCvew2uSA

It was hard to describe his life.  
To pick out the correct words to define the horror, the jarring pain, the disgust.  
It was hard to describe his damage.

And so, Jack decided he just wouldn’t.

\---

Archived in the back of his mind but vivid every time he closed his eyes, insidious humans sneaking into their house, his mother taken first, shot with a tranquillizer gun to prevent any attack.  
He was barely 18 years old when it happened, captive for the next ten.  
His mother held him close every night, in the cell they were put in; beasts, they said, they were reduced to mere animals.

Shapeshifters weren’t uncommon in this world. They became a natural part of evolution at some point and scientists were still researching for clues on why it happened. They were able to become animals, out of which the most numerous were mammals.  
Jack and his mother were bears: strong built, powerful, perfect for fighting. And that’s exactly what XOF forced them to do.  
Fight.  
XOF captured shapeshifters, treated them like animals as “they should be treated”. The fighting was a surplus, for the audience, the humans coming to the show to enjoy the massacre. Paying their tickets, in their secret and illegal alcove, humans clapped their hands, cheering eagerly, wanting blood to be shed.  
It was said that who managed XOF was a man with a skull for a face. A shapeshifter attacked and disfigured him, killed his family. Revenge found and drove the man into trying to annihilate all of them, to the last one.  
But a massacre is futile, quick. There is no gain in that.  
A show, on the other hand…

Being _animals_ , the young ones could usually stay with their mothers and, in his personal hell, Jack was lucky he looked barely legal to stay with her. At least, until they decided he was old enough to be alone.  
And alone he stayed.

\--

After barely two weeks, he was brought on the stage to fight for the first time.  
A man, a human, towering over a huge cage, would explain how the whole ordeal played out. The crowd cheering, unbearable noise. The light was so artificial and strong it made him dizzy. The smell in the cage was an overwhelming mix of blood, sweat, death.

Jack was standing inside the cage.  
His mother shouting, _take me first, take me. Leave him alone._

White noise.

Jack was standing inside the cage.

_If you don’t shapeshift five minutes after the fighting starts you will be shot on sight_ , the man’s voice stated plainly with a microphone. Jack wasn’t looking at him, he was just staring at the ground, panting, shaking.  
“Adrenaline fights”. They called an adrenaline fight when you force yourself to become the animal you're supposed to be, a fight for pure survival.

Jack was standing in the cage.  
A girl was forced inside, she was probably in her early twenties. Tanned skin under blue eyes and blond, wavy hair. She screamed back, fiercely slamming her fists on the cage. She was scared.  
They rang the bell, the fight should start. She faced Jack, terrified.  
_Please don’t kill me_ , she shouted with a heavy Spanish accent.

These fights aren’t fair.  
In the end, she turned out to be just a sheep.  
The girl shapeshifted only for a brief moment, before returning into her human form, while Jack, on his side, was a cornered, but still menacing bear. The paleness on her face was ghastly. She knew there was no hope even if she tried to fight back.

Five minutes had passed.  
A shot was heard, a shocking roar of boos echoed in the arena.  
A body now laid in the cage with a hole in its head and there was no more screaming.  
Jack, the boy, stared at the puddle of blood, which was growing larger on the ground.  
Jack, the bear, was announced the winner.

They would rename him Ishmael.

\--

The first time he killed somebody, it was a young Russian man in his late twenties, a soft face framed by long blond hair and fair skin. Jack had seen him fight before, and he was fast. A cheetah they called Raiden.  
Piercing through the skin with his own teeth, feeling the blood running wild as the bone broke, the neck snapping, death arriving. Where there was once a beautiful man now laid a cold corpse.  
It took fifteen minutes. White noise again. His paws turned into hands, but the blood stayed, piercing through his eyes, red, burning. Jack’s breath started getting faster and he felt the taste of the flesh he had ripped out crawling in his mouth. Panic was the only answer his brain had found.

_Where is his mother? What will happen now?_

The crowd cheers, Ishmael is the winner!

_Where is his mommy?_

_Mommy, where are you?  
I’m scared._

\--

An exact year from their capture, Jack was separated from his mother. He was almost 19.  
It all went downhill from there, though.  
He was very fond of his mother, even though they shared no biological links. Joy, that was her name, had found him abandoned, in a place usually roamed by bear shapeshifters and she took him in when Jack was just five months old. His mother was everything to him. She was strong, powerful. She hunted and lived by herself but also had many human friends, who, as a child, he had met countless times and loved their company. A serious person who rarely smiled and yet, so very sweet. She truly was a joy.

Everything started to weigh on him harder than it ever did before, and it felt as if they had been keeping him a captive for thousands of years. All the prisoners were rarely shown sunlight. They all ate almost raw food, and they had to turn into their animal form to do so. Sleeping on the ground with bare blankets or straw, no dignity in living, no purpose. No hope to escape.

Exhausting.

\---

All around him reeked of desperation. Jack wished his mother were there with him, to be shielded from the cries he heard at night, the screams. In the cell right in front of him there was a middle aged man, a hyena. Sometimes, when Jack would wake up in the dark, alone, he’d cry in panic and the man would comfort him from the other side. Whispering that it’s going to be fine, coddling Jack with the idea that his mom was fine, she is surviving alright.  
Once, Jack asked him his name but only got the “new” one XOF gave him. They called the hyena man “The sorrow”. He kept smiling through the bars, sometimes it was a bit unsettling, but it was the only consolation the boy had. The sorrow didn’t see very well, he explained how they got his glasses taken away at some point after being captured, but as a hyena, he could see just fine. The sorrow would talk to Jack as if he was trying to make him accept that death will occur, eventually. Inevitable. He had been there long enough to start feeling all the lost souls who got trapped by cruel human hands. There was nothing left in him but that unsettling smile.

_The worst has yet to come_ , he foretold, _but you will not be alone forever._

\--

One day, Jack woke up from a horrible sleep. It had been at least two years since the last time he had slept decently, anyway, so he didn't really care about that, but something smelt odd.  
The sorrow wasn’t in his cell. He might had been taken for a fight and that made Jack very nervous. He absentmindedly started pacing back and forth in the cage, turned into a bear, until what he thought was the late afternoon.  
Four men appeared from the corridor and entered The Sorrow’s cage, starting to clean it out.

_Where is he?_ Jack tentatively asked them.

The simple answer he got deeply shocked him but at the same time it was somehow reassuring.  
He is dead, the female bear killed him.  
Jack was leaning on the bars of the cell as he silently started sobbing. He shouldn’t be happy The Sorrow was dead, but his mother was alive. She was okay. He kept crying there until one of the men batted him off the bars, reprimanding him, telling him to stop trying to act like a human, that it was disgusting.

Jack sat in a corner of the cell, drying his cheeks with the back of his hand and, for a moment, he wished to see the unsettling smile again.

\--

Ishmael was one of the best animals XOF ever had. His winning ratio was ten out of ten.

\--

Jack turned twenty and didn’t realise it. The only constant was his beard growing fuller every passing day. He scratched it, laying on his bare straw bed while staring at the ceiling in a catatonic state. A spark of joyful memories flowed through his mind. He saw himself, fifteen years old, so excited he grew his first facial hair; he showed it to his mother. She was so proud her little boy was growing up. They ate cake that day.  
_How did cake taste like?_  
His mother smiled at him, in his dream. He was happy.  
The vision was abruptly interrupted by a sudden smack of pain coming from one of his cheeks. He looked at his hand and there was blood in it. He had accidentally scratched himself till he bled.

\--

He started to wonder if he had ever lived outside of this hell at all. Were his old memories real? Maybe he _was_ really just an animal.  
He kept killing and killing, as his mind kept sinking deeper and deeper into the oblivion. Who was he? _I am Jack_ , he repeated to himself. _You are Ishmael_ , a new voice roared in his head. Maybe, he was finally going insane. He would welcome madness like a blessing, forgetting everything, living in his own world made out of that sweet reminiscence of the freedom he had.

Jack opened and closed the palm of his hand while lying on the cell floor, looking attentively at it. Softly, he starts whispering a song his mother used to sing when he was a child.

_Sing, sing a song, sing out loud. Sing out strong._

His voice was raspy and he almost couldn’t recognise it. How long had he been in silence, he didn’t remember. Maybe a couple of weeks since the last conversation he had with a bull man they had placed in The Sorrow’s cage.  
This bull man stayed briefly, a couple of days tops. Bulky in physique, a dark blond, probably around thirtyfive . He asked Jack where they were, thus he answered with the name of the “block” of cages they were in. The bull man seemed concerned. _How will they make me see my daughter, then?_ He muttered to himself, before turning to the younger one and introducing himself as Roy. His daughter was a young girl, barely twelve. Afterall the luxury of staying with your children was only granted to mothers, since that’s usually how mammals work.

Jack gritted his teeth.

_My girl’s name is Meryl, she’s my pride_ , Roy continued as if he was really talking to himself this time, _I don’t want her to grow up in captivity like this_. He whispered curses under his breath, trying not to let the guards hear. He flopped onto one of the walls and stayed there for a while, listless.  
Jack sat with his knees close to his face, wondering…wondering if, maybe, just maybe, Roy knew about his mother. Three years since the last time he had seen her, eight months since the last news he received.

_Have you_ , he stumbled, leaning closer to the bars, _have you seen another bear?_

Roy woke up from his thoughts and straightened himself, trying to find the other's face in the dimly lit cell.  
_I saw a bear, yeah. They made us watch her kill a lioness, three weeks ago. I have been moving cells around since then._ Then the man fell quiet.

Jack stood up, _his mother was alive! She was fine!_ he was yelling in his mind, as he started pacing in the cage, like a restless animal. His breath grew heavier, cold sweat running down his forehead. _His mother was alive!_ He punched the wall. _His mother was alive!_ He grunted, this time crashing his whole body onto it. Once, twice, thrice. The guards moved near his cage, shouting at him to stop, pointing their tranquillizer guns at him. He was running his fingers through the bricks of the dirty surface of the wall, as if he was trying to hold onto something. Everything was hurting, his fingertips and knuckles were bleeding. He turned to the guards, with hate in his eyes, but he kept silent, letting out a menacing roar he borrowed from his bear side. It was the first time that had happened.  
The guards prompted him to shut up and behave. They didn’t care he was bleeding and shaking.  
He dragged himself towards a corner, and fell on his knees. Facing the wall, he rested his forehead there, feeling sobs piling up in his troath. He trapped them with his hands, pressing hard onto his mouth. His vision became blurry.

Roy asked him if he was alright.  
Jack didn’t answer.

Eventually, Roy was taken away. He wished Jack good luck.  
Jack didn’t answer.

This all happened a couple of weeks ago.  
\--

A huge Russian lion left him with a scar on his left eye. The lion had already a face trailed with scars, with cold blue eyes that stared angrily at him with every single attack.  
Jack couldn’t stop himself from wondering whether this guy actually liked hurting others since he never really tried to finish him off quickly, as decency demanded in these fights. You never really wanted to delay someone’s eventual death, afterall. But of course, this one was different: the man lingered on the pleasure of Jack’s own cries of pain, as he bit hard on non-vital body parts just to enjoy the blood pouring out. After he went out of his mind a couple of years ago, he had been deemed one of the best fighters ever to grace XOF. Rumors spread and they caught Jack’s ears too: the lion’s lover was killed in front of his eyes and this instilled in him a sadistic steak. Each and every one of his fights ended in the gruesome and violent demise of his opponent.  
He had turned into a real beast, under the new name of “Colonel”.

Jack’s heart was racing, as he was limping badly on a corner of the cage, the Colonel roaring at him. _Fight like a man!_

_Does it really matter?_ The pain he’s feeling, the anger. _Do they matter?_ His sorrow, his fear. _Is it worth surviving only to feel like this?_ He wanted to laugh his misery away.  
_Please, death, come quickly, oh please. End this. End this all. It’s over._

The crowd shouting for Ishmael was like a static sound filling his mind. Dizzy. Jack saw his own blood dripping on the ground. He closed his eyes, hearing the low growl of his opponent coming closer. In fifty seconds, his final blow.

_Set me free._

He heard his name, yelled out desperation. His name flew over the cheers, over the screams, over the static.

_Jack!_

_Jack!_

_Jack!_

His mother was in the darkness, she had to watch with three other shapeshifters.  
He couldn’t see her that well but she was trying to stand up and run to the cage, pulling at the chains her wrists and ankles were trapped with. She was there. _She was real._ Everything was real again. Her face, twisted in grief, calling for him. It all became of this world again. His body was filled of an inconceivable will to live, just to see her again. To touch her again. To be held in her arms, only for a moment, just pretending all of this had never happened.

It all happened in one minute.

Up to his rear paws, trying to balance himself again, he charged first towards the lion who was taken aback by the sudden attack. He saw himself lifting the other and throwing him on the bars. The image was akin to an out of body experience. Ishmael was moving his body; Ishmael was ripping his opponent’s skin; Ishmael felt the humans encouraging him to kill.  
_And how he killed._

He didn’t even give his opponent a moment to stand. Running his whole body over him, he sinked his teeth into his neck, crunching down to the bone until he heard a loud cracking sound. He stayed with the lifeless, and now human, body lingering in his mouth for almost a minute, as he dragged it to the center of the cage.  
Jack turned back into his human form, wheezing. His whole body covered in blood, his own for the most part. His eyes roamed furiously around himself, trying to gain control again. Opening and closing the palm of his hands. He turned his head to the dark side of the arena and he remembered. He remembered why he had survived.  
Limping towards the bars as the announcer declared Ishmael the winner.

Jack reached out a hand from the bars. He cried for his mother in front of an uncaring crowd. He cried so hard his eyes hurt, his own voice sounding distant and distorted. Joy reached out a hand just the same as two guards were pressing her down, ordering her to sit down, probably.

_Jack, you’re going to be fine,_ his mother shouted.

The guards regrouped the shapeshifters and made them march away. Joy kept looking back at the cage, which was wildly lit by the cold lights. Her boy, her child, now turned into a killing machine. His unkempt beard and long, dirty hair made him look like a complete savage. He was just twenty-three.  
She couldn’t stand to look at him, turning her face away, feeling disgusted. Powerless. They were destroying her son. Joy walked away in line, straight, expressionless. Tears were forming in her eyes but she fought them back.  
There was nothing left in her anymore.

Jack saw the guards taking his mother away once again and panic took over him. _No, not again. No. No, I can’t stand it. Let me see her! Let me see her!_  
Pathetic, people laughing or booing at the scene: him trying to break the bars, running near the side of the cage as he was crying his eyes out, screaming at the top of his lungs. He fell down, still shouting, his left leg refusing to move. Pale out of blood loss, he threw up whatever he had in his stomach.

The XOF CEO was looking this show over, from above, an unseen room with the best view. What a thrilling and touching scene. _Indeed._

_Let us have a big dramatic family reunion._

_\--_

Darkness surrounded him, making him think his eyes were still closed shut. His body was screaming with pain, but he had been lightly medicated. From what he could feel on his leg, bandages were covering all of his calf and from brushing a hand over them, the touch revealed stitches underneath. He coughed, his breath already running short despite not moving.

Jack recognized it was his cell only after smelling the air. Turning into his animal form, he kept sniffing the ground; his night vision helped him not to bump onto the bars.

_How long had he been out?_ In his mouth there lingered a strong iron taste and he was freezing. In his human form, he sweated buckets.

The image of his mother, shouting his name while holding out her hand, was haunting him.  He stopped his aimless crawl around the perimeter of his cell, leaning onto the bars. A small, bright light at the end of the corridor coming from above disclosed the shape of stairs. Whimpers and growls coming from the other cages filled his ears. There was nobody to talk to.

He felt so alone.

Completely alone.

A light breeze came from the same end of the light and caressed his tired, messy face. It was comforting. After closing his eyes, exhaustion caught up on him and his head bobbed, leaving him half awake, half asleep daze. His mind was roaming places he hadn’t been in years, thinking he had been drugged earlier to make him docile. The breeze reminded him of his times playing outside, as a little cub, the wind in his hair as he was running in his backyard. A hallucination, his young self, maybe six years old, sitting in the putrid corridor, holding a small teddy bear. He is well dressed with a small white button shirt and navy blue short pants decorated with tiny anchors. Little dark blue shoes, long white socks reaching his knees. The face is that of a healthy child, with chubby, rosy cheeks. The baby is whispering something to his teddy friend, patting its head, smiling widely.

Jack held out a hand between the bars. His mind was completely blurred out by an immense fatigue, trying to pet the child’s hair because he was, _oh_ , so very real to him. _I will protect you_ , he whispered just like his young self was doing to his toy, _I will protect you_.

The boy rose his face from his plush, staring at the dirty, animal like man, staring deep with his own big, blue eyes. His small mouth parted a bit, and he asked

_Who will protect you?_

 

The door from up the stairs was slammed open and the shock woke Jack up from his delusion. People were coming down the stairs. He recognized three silhouettes, one, with what he thought was a hat on, walking in front of the other two, clearly guards. Jack felt threatened as they walked closer and closer to his cage, instinctively retreating his whole body on the far end of the cage. His back to the rear wall, putting on a defensive stance.

Footsteps were the only things he could hear now, louder. _Louder_. Darkness was still enveloping him and he couldn’t make out the faces of the three people in front of him when they stopped there. He felt so uneasy, nervously rubbing a hand on his forearm.

_So, this is our champion, the great Ishmael._

A sly, sinister voice spelt all the words slowly, almost softly.

_Light up, you’re a winner!_ He continued, adding a small chuckle. A flash of light surrounded him, his eyes blinded by the sudden change and he couldn’t help but shield his whole face with his arms. He heard all the others in the block, screaming in pain for the same reasons.

When he managed to make out shapes and colours again, the three figures were still standing in front of his cell. _I wanted to see you in a close encounter_ , the voice explained, Jack tentatively rising his head again, _I couldn’t see your face well in your last show_.

The face Jack was met with was the one of a skull. Chills ran down his spine as the skull face man sought through his soul with those eerie eyes. He smiled and Jack felt an aching pain in his shoulder all of a sudden.

_I wanted to give you a gift. A good animal doing a good deed needs a reward, afterall._

The pain spiked up and his head felt heavy, his movements became sloppy. He growled, and looked at the source of the pain, finding a dart. They tranquilised him, probably when he was confused by the light shift. He tried to crawl forward, his eyes having a hard time staying open as his own voice asked why, multiple times. His voice didn’t feel like his own, again. It never did.

He collapsed on the floor.

\--

Jack felt something warm around him, his head not resting on the usual hard concrete, but somewhere soft, comfortable. Familiar. His head was hurting so badly he really didn’t want to acknowledge his surroundings. He didn’t want to go back to his life.

Letting out a puff of air from his nose out of pain, he shifted a bit in the warmth of whatever that was holding him. _You’re awake? Jack?_

A voice.

 

_Her voice._

 

He promptly opened his eyes, looking up in the dim light. His mother was there, she was holding him tightly as his head was resting on her chest.

Jack couldn’t bring himself to move, not even a finger. It was a dream, for sure. It couldn’t be true. But she looked so, _so_ real. Her face looked strained and tired, but somehow it managed to keep her beauty intact. Her hair, tied in a ponytail and in the soft, almost sunset-like light that filled the place – _a cage? -_ they were in, he couldn’t make out the scars covering her body. His subconscious had shaped his mother as if she hadn’t been hurt or abused for years, just like he had been.

 

Joy was just _perfect_ , there, sitting on the ground, with her usual solemn expression.

He had waited so long to feel this close again. After so many years.

 

Yet, it was like his emotions were numb. He couldn’t feel anything.

 

His dream came true but his mind was stuck in a limbo. Doubt poisoned his thoughts, feelings swept away. Trying to avoid suffering.

Apathy.

She brought him closer, placing his face on her breast as if he was still a small boy. He could feel her heartbeat. _It’s okay, Jack_. Its beating, regular like the hand of a clock. Reassuring. _I’m here now._ He gradually moved one hand closer to his mother’s hip; _if he touched her, would she disappear? Would she go away again?_

Joy was tender in every touch, cradling her child like the most precious thing in the world; even though he had grown bigger than the last time they had seen each other. She noticed her son’s struggles to understand the situation, and shifted her eyes down, at his doubtful hand. She took it in hers. Jack was startled for a moment, the damage they had done to him was deep and he could barely function around others. The concept of being loved, held or even touched became foreign to him. His mother was stronger, though. He was convinced of that much, at least.

_Mum_ , he whispered hesitantly, his eyes locked on their intertwined hands. _Mum_ , he repeated louder, with a shaky voice.

And then, an epiphany. Tears slowly sliding down his cheeks as he turned to Joy. She hugged him again, except this time Jack clung to her, with an almost fierce grip. He sobbed, in her arms. Joy was trying to calm him down, gently lulling him. A bizarre scene, since she was actually cradling a grown man now. Her stolen boy.

 Joy kept staring straight in front of her, to the wall. Her eyes were dead, expressionless.

She was stronger than her son but she wasn’t unbreakable.

 

_Hush, my child,_ she whispered.

 

_It’s natural to be afraid._

\--

Jack and his mother spent some days together.

She wouldn’t smile but Jack was so happy: the cell they were in always had a nice, warm light to it. It wasn’t as cold as his old one, too. They also gave them cooked food to eat. Plain, bland rice, very badly cooked steaks. Some fruit, apples or pears. For a regular person, they would be horrifying meals, but to Jack it was heaven on earth. He wouldn’t think twice before eating a mouthful, whether the food was poisoned or not.

Joy would eat silently as Jack talked. He talked a lot. He had so many things to tell her, even though most of the times he couldn’t articulate that well anymore. He struggled a bit in conjugating verbs or remembering words, but that’s what happens when you barely speak for years.

It all felt so good, sleeping in her arms again as she would pet his hair to help him doze off.

 

_I love you, mum_ , he quietly said one night, while tiredly curling up next to her.

 

_I love you, Jack._

 

He thought this was somehow the reward the skull face man had told him about. _A reward_. Ishmael had killed so many, he was the best fighter; maybe that’s what happens to the best ones. Jack was naïve and he would trust people in a heartbeat, much to his mother’s concern. He had also learnt about Joy’s new name: _The Boss_. Somehow, he thought that fitted her.

_Well,_ _mum, you are a boss_ , he shyly gave out a chuckle. She questioned him with a serious look, whether he knew the meaning of the name _Ishmael_. He did not.

Joy explained how the name was given to the son of Abraham, born from Hagar, his handmaiden. The archangel Gabriel prophesied that Ishmael was to be a warrior, his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him. The name means _God will hear_.

Joy didn’t believe in any kind of religion, but the way she glanced over to the cell bars made Jack wonder what she was thinking. She sighed and moved her eyes down, to the ground.

_Will he?_ She asked. Jack didn’t understand.

\--

After a week, or what Jack counted as a week, his world crumbled down once again.

He woke up out of fear, hearing roars, cries, screams. They weren’t human, they weren’t animal. Startled, he found himself in what looked like a torture room out of a nightmare; he was chained up, wrists, ankles, neck. Other shapeshifters were in the same situation, some were shouting in pain, others were behaving oddly as if they were in their animal form, some were already turned into such. The room had corpses, everywhere. The smell of decomposition hit Jack hard and he had to turn on his side to throw up.

His breath was shaky, everywhere he looked there were shapeshifter in a frenzy, all of them looked odd. Acted odd. He spotted some guards, dressed in bright yellow, as they walked towards him and forced him up, pulling his neck chain to make him walk.

A young woman, a shapeshifter, tried to attack him as he passed by, just like a scared dog would do. She tried to bite his leg as she began to shapeshift into a wolf, but the chains restricted her to a human form. The wolf growled, just like a real animal. Jack jolted back, shocked. _What’s gotten into her? What’s going on with everyone?_ He wondered, an unnerving feeling of confusion and disgust mixing in his stomach, already upside down. He was pulled again, surrounded by the guards shouting _come on_ as they approached a corridor with a staircase, going upstairs. He could hear cheering. Faint, distant, but the distinctive sound of humans shouting for blood was there, behind that door.

They pulled him up the stairs. Something smelled fishy. He was trying to push back, he didn’t want to fight. This one was different, he thought. Two of the guards were able to finally make him step into the arena.

Joy was there, standing.

 

_Mum_ , he yelled.

 

The usual announcer exclaimed how this was going to be one of those _special nights_ , a show priced more than usual for his emotional baggage. _A true spectacle._

Those words instinctively terrified Jack. As they pushed him down, onto his knees, he could hear one of the guards murmur _why aren’t you like your mommy? Head down, be a good boy_ , into his ear. His eyes, wide with terror, met Joy’s. She bit her lip, her severe face seemed as equally terrified but she managed to smile at him. Her smile was trying to comfort him.

Again, the announcer’s voice crept into Jack’s head.

_Berserk fights_. An injection, a solution of unknown origin, some chemical mishmash of sort, was performed onto a shapeshifter and it would make their _true_ form come out, their feral, animal side. That’s how they made friends and family fight. That’s how they would bend the shapeshifter’s will.

Joy kept smiling to her boy, to avoid her will to break. She had known for the whole time they had spent together. XOF made her swear she would stay silent about this or they would have killed Jack without questions. She had to cradle her child, knowing they will eventually fight to death.

 

There’s a price to the injection, besides the obvious loss of a dear one.

 

Your brain is altered, permanently. If a shapeshifter is usually fifty percent human and fifty percent animal, these figures are turned around: after one injection, you become seventy-five percent animal, twenty-five percent human. With two, the shapeshifter would become an animal that could turn into a non-functional human. The first one caused speech impairment, a shift into a more typical animal behavior, especially in relation to others and the surroundings; it also prompted a more frequent transformation into their animal form.

 

White noise, again. Jack’s head was filled with nothing but unintelligible noise. A guard held out a syringe. The fluid quickly got injected into his mother as her last words are the only clear thing Jack heard. 

_Jack, you will be fine._

She was freed from her chains and dropped into the fighting cage. Her screams were terrifying. Jack didn’t even notice he had been injected too, as they dragged him into her same cage. He started feeling pain everywhere, burning, his body felt like it was going to overheat and explode. The last thing he remembers is his mother air-scorching yell as she turns into a bear.

_Blackout._

\--

When Jack regained consciousness, he felt heavy. Every inch of his body was numb. He felt vulnerable and started smelling the air for clues.

Then the pain arrived, his right eye was hurting like crazy and he tried to blink, turning on all fours. He awkwardly moved towards the bars, usually the only light source. He reached out a hand and failed to calculate the distance, but he was still all confused and shaken by being unconscious, so he didn’t pay too much attention to it. Once he dropped his weight against the cell bars, he promptly understood there was something wrong with his eye. He just thought the pain was because he had hurt it during the fight, but clearly it wasn’t just that.

Jack moved a hand in front of his face.

 

Nothing.

 

His right eye projected nothing. A deep darkness engulfed the right side of his everything, now.

A flash of pain in his head, he had to vomit. And he remembered.

_Where is mom?_ He asked himself as the silence around him finally made him realise he was completely alone. It wasn’t his usual cell, either.

 

_It’s a cell for a winner_ , the sly voice stated, coming from his right.

 

Jack growled, taken aback by being approached on his now blind spot. He turned on his knees and slammed his hands on the bars, roaring a _where is she? What did you do to her?_ In the XOF CEO’s face as he smiled back.

 

_Oh, but we did nothing to her. You just won the fight, Ishmael. Congratulations. You are even above The boss._

_We must call you Big Boss from now on, mustn’t we._

 

Jack’s breath got cut short. He was frightened. _This makes no sense, it can’t be._

_She is dead._ Skull face announced, opening his arms as if it was a joyous news.

  
_You killed her._


	2. Remember Me As A Time Of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkclIDu9K5c

_How can you go on?_

_Knowing you have killed the most important person in your life, how can you go on?_

_You don’t even remember how it all happened. There is just emptiness._

_How can you mourn that loss?_

_They never provided you with a tomb, a memento of her life spent on this earth. Not even a last glimpse to her corpse to weep over it. Abused even in the wake of grief._

_You don’t even know the day she died._

_But you know that’s the day where you died with her._


	3. With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls We Slept

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgoFzBqbSaU

The XOF facility was located somewhere in the middle of the Alaskan forest. Tall trees hid all of it. The cold air was like a shield, impenetrable, deep in the abandoned vegetation of the region.

The blue sky would look over the buildings of this horror house, sometimes rain would curse it. From the outside, it all looked so quiet. The guards standing at the front entrance, near the tall gates. They almost looked free of guilt as though they were rightfully enjoying their small talks. The same routine, like a normal job, like normal people.

Inside a lonesome, favourite cell, two medics and four guards were hovering over the chained up half-conscious body of a man. He breathed slowly, painfully. Dirty brown hair and an equally dirty beard covered his face. A half open blue eye on his left. A big eyepatch on his right eye marked the figure as an icon; instinctively, all the shapeshifters knew who he was as soon as they would see him, even as just a bystander at fights.

Ishmael.

He had turned twenty-five three months prior, but he didn’t know that. He stopped counting days. Years. He stopped counting the hours.  Day and night was indifferent to him, in his isolated cell.

They said he grew violent, just like one of those worthy fighters from some time ago, _Colonel_. He didn’t enjoy killing, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling scared. Terrified. He was constantly on the edge, growling and beating himself on the bars. Guards said he would try to speak to them, sometimes but his brain was corrupted by the injection he had suffered. It made him act more like a beast in a cage, hunching forward even when moving on two legs. He would speak softly and awkwardly, just to get their attention.

He kept asking where his mother was.

He asked for three years before he eventually stopped.

Some of the guards reported that he looked almost pitiful, more than threatening. Others said he’d talk to himself, whispering _I love you, Jack_ , except nobody knew who this Jack person was.

Ishmael was noticed for a test by the CEO, after he wildly attacked one of the guards, almost tearing his arm off because of a bite. The guard was playing the clown, mocking him. He snapped as soon as they said something about his moping over his mother. _She couldn’t have been so great if he was able to kill her off, could she._ They were too close to the bars for him not to attack.

The CEO was, once again, stunned by the sheer willpower of the bear man. He consulted with scientists on a project, how doable it could be. It was 2071 afterall, science had gone its pretty far out route into being well advanced on certain subjects such as in vitro procreation.

The medics were extracting sperm from Ishmael as he lied motionless, a numb expression on his face. He slowly closed and opened the palm of his hand. Grasping onto reality, just briefly. He could just see blurry shadows, distant noise.

Ishmael closed his eye shut.

When he had opened it again, it was all dark and quiet. Night had come. Maybe it was a hallucination, like many of the ones he seemed to have.

Ishmael grunted and puffed air from his nose, rolling onto his side. He coughed and lifted himself up, getting on his own two feet and shakenly walked towards a tiny hole in the wall, which should have been deemed a window. It didn’t have bars, for it was too small to fit a whole hand, and too tall for him to reach as a human.

He shapeshifted into his bear form and placed his nose in the small alcove, resting his paws against the wall. Ishmael sniffed the outside. The cold air of the night filled his mind, it was the only way he had to think about something else.

About five minutes had passed when Ishmael decided to move away from the hole, curling himself up in a corner while still keeping his bear form.

\--

Jack felt violated.

He tried not to look upset and aggravated. The fresh air helped him calm down, soothing his soul for a moment: just a soft brush on his fur, even if the pungent cold made him look away just as quickly. When he lied down, he would never sleep. He never got any rest. And tonight was no different.

His head hurt. A lot. He had gotten worse over the years, becoming more irrational. His only comfort was being a bear; a big, strong animal shield to protect him.

_I love you, Jack._

The words never stopped echoing in his head.

_You will be fine._

Years of agonizing in a cell, now even away from the others, seeing them just for fights.

Shaped to be brutal.

To envision everyone as threats. Humans were demons, shapeshifters opponents.

Jack fell asleep as a bear, that night. His body naturally turned him into a human after a couple of hours he lied there, in a restless sleep (you could say he just stood still with his eye closed).

He had a vivid nightmare of hands touching him where they don’t belong, cold and distressing. The faces had shapes of horrible monsters, long canines, shouting at him to _be still_ and act _like a good boy_. _Behave_. The demons startled him awake, in the pale light of the early morning.

He looked down his lower body. The tore up, disgusting pants he wore were wet.

Jack cleaned his eye from tears as he realised he had wet himself.

_I love you, mum._

\--

Jack was sometimes brought among others, just to watch in disgust as their kin killed one another. The shapeshifters sitting there used that time to whisper conversations or ask about relatives or friends.

Since his condition worsened, he rarely spoke to anyone nor was he approached. He was used to being silent. He sat, his only eye locked onto the cage in the arena. His fierce look was frightening to all the others sitting near him. Jack usually ended up alone after a while, since they all scooted away. He stared at shapeshifters dying. The indistinct noise filling his ears, his head. His heart.

Jack felt nothing. Apathy, again. Every day, till the end of days.

Ishmael, on the other hand, was almost addicted to killing. It was liberating. His suffering didn’t exist as he fought, paw to paw, fangs to fangs. Ishmael wasn’t trying to survive anymore, he was searching for someone strong enough to kill him off, once and for all.

One day, a tigress and a female kangaroo were fighting. As he was ignoring his surrounding, focusing only on the yelps of the animals, a woman moved closer to him and whispered something - he didn’t understand what exactly – simply to get his attention. She was a shapeshifter, of course, but her eyes were bloodshot and her hair almost completely white. _An albino_. He could make out a mole on the left side of her mouth.

 _Are you Jack?_ She asked in a distinct British accent, quietly, trying not to alarm the guards. They weren’t really supposed to talk. 

He frowned in confusion. _How did she know? Who is she?_ For reasons he didn’t quite get, he felt threatened, and decided to move a little away from the woman, without breaking eye contact.

_I was with your mother._

The woman’s solemn expression really reminded him of _her_.

 _I have a little boy._ Jack could feel sweat running down his spine.

_His name is Hal. We were put with your mother because of overcrowding in the female blocks._

His mind was collapsing, again. _Please, please, stop. Don’t talk. I don’t want to know._

 _She was such an amazing person, even if I got to know her just for this little while, in the most unfortunate conditions_ , the way she spoke about his mother was almost endearing, _she stayed with me for two years_ , and then the woman abruptly stopped to recollect herself, to suppress the tears. He could hear her whisper _my beloved_ under her breath.

_What does this mean? Who is this woman?_

_What happened in these years?_

_I don’t want to know. This is scary._

When she looked up again, her face was contracted with anguish. Biting her lower lip, she glared at the bear man like he was, indeed, the cause of her pain.

_I saw you,_

Jack breathed in

_I saw you killing her._

He shifted his eye around, his hands trying to grasp the ground; it felt like it was going to give in at any moment, dragging him into the dark, deep earth.

He breathed out. And in again. And out.

He didn’t want to remember and he couldn’t even if he tried to. He had no memories of it. There was no way to recollect anything from his mother’s last moments. Nothing. 

Jack started growling, bringing a hand to his face, over his right eye. _Pain_. The woman clearly didn’t know about the injection. They made others watch the show only after it had already begun. It wasn’t her fault.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. It’s obvious for her to blame him.

_How could a son do that to his mother?_

_Why did you kill her?_

She rose her voice, somehow not caring that it informed the guards about their conversation.

He had to put both hands on his face, covering it. Hiding in shame as his breath again grew heavier, whimpering and making those inhuman noises he hated. Low growls. He knew this wasn’t him. _Help me._

Jack looked back at her. She kept shouting as the guards were coming and the other shapeshifters were all watching him. Shocked faces burnt guilt into his soul even more. They were whispering. It was driving him crazy.

He wanted to scream he was sorry, that he didn’t know either.

That he didn’t want to. He was sorry.

He was so _sorry_.

Ishmael took the advantage of the situation. Even though the chains they were locked in made it impossible to shapeshift, his body was burning in heat. He jumped onto the woman, roaring. The ongoing fight had just finished, in a spectacular turn of events the kangaroo managed to kill her opponent. As the audience was cheering, Ishmael pinned the woman down on the ground and bit her on her left shoulder. She shrieked in pain.

He was still in his human form as he pierced her flesh with his teeth.

The other shapeshifters were in a commotion, some stood up to move away. The whispering became stronger; panic was sneaking among them. _Did he shapeshift? No, no, look, he’s still a human. How could he do such a thing? Is he going to kill us all?_

The guards frantically removed him from the woman. She was shouting at him, _are you out of your mind, what are you_

_a beast?_

Jack tasted blood in his mouth, as he gritted his teeth and stared at the ground. Blood flowing down, his beard had crimson shades.

 _He was a beast_.

 _I’m sorry, mum_.

He didn’t really realise what had just happened until he noticed the two other guards firmly holding the woman, as blood profusely dripped from her shoulder down to the tip of her fingers. A pool of blood. He flashed the same scene from almost a decade prior. The ground of the cage during his first fight. The girl on the floor. _Jack was standing inside the cage._

_What have I done_

He was dragged away as he couldn’t look away from the dripping blood.

Jack looked frightened, of himself. She looked terrified, of him.

She was crying.

Jack shakily whispered _I’m sorry_. Many times. Too many times.

The guards had to shut him up from this childish behaviour. A punishment was bound to happen after this unnecessary feral attack; he was lucky the audience hadn’t noticed. No food for five days. Complete isolation for a month.

_Back to zero._

_In his cell._

_Alone._

_Where is my mom?_ He asked the guards, on the second day of his forced fasting.

\--

Waking up, in the past ten years, had been a strenuous job for his psyche. Whenever he was truly asleep, it was because of sedatives and when he’d regain consciousness, his life would always be changed somehow. May it be a new cell, may it be some kind of weird abuse, may it be killing your own parent.

This time was no different. When he opened his eye, he was in a lit room. It was a room, somehow. A black door stood on the other side, right in front of him while the room itself had flashing white walls and marble floor. There was a mirror on one of the walls and he knew. He knew he was being watched.

But a weird smell got his nose and then a small, quiet noise caught his ears. He turned to the only thing in the room. It was a greyish sheet, moving. Being the animal that he was, Jack was cautious about this whole ordeal. He was wary on the reasons he had been moved there. He started looking around the small place he was in, smelling the air again. It didn’t feel unsafe, but he had learnt his lesson. Nothing happened, and he waited still for at least five minutes.

A small noise, again. Sounded like a sigh, or a cry.

Leaning on the wall to stand up on two feet – so weird to walk freely, in a way-, he moved a few steps towards the sheet and he saw them.

_They were,_

_So tiny._

He gasped, seeing babies laying on the floor, huddled in that single sheet of cloth. They were moving their small hands, looking around curiously. The babies were identical twins. Two months old, tops.

He kneeled down near them, in shock. He had forgotten such innocence existed and it strangely drawn him to them.

A voice spoke. Jack sighed, closing his only eye for a moment. There is no peace.

 _You’re a father now,_ skull face said. Jack turned his face to the mirror and frowned in a puzzled look. He reminded Big Boss – the CEO liked this other name he had given Jack- of that visit the medics payed him more than a year prior, and this is the result. Twins. _He was a father._

 _Aren’t you grateful of the miracle of life._ He asked, giving out a short chuckle.

Jack turned to the babies. _His babies_. He was terrified to touch them, since they were so fragile and soft. As soon as he moved a hand down, to one of the inquisitive little faces, skull face resumed his speech, reprimanding the man from moving any closer.

 _Turn into your animal form, will you? We need to see if they recognise you as their father. You know, they can’t do your,_ a pause, _thing. Yet. We have to understand if they are useful or just an experiment gone wrong._

 _Experiment_ , Jack repeated. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the newborns, one of them shifting to the side just a little, placing a small hand on his brother’s cheek.

Children made without his consent. _Are they his real children?_

He looked up to the mirror again and asked, _what will happen?_

 _Well, aren’t you talkative today_. Skull face sounded amused. _If they don’t recognise you, they will just die. We are not heartless, it will be quick. No hard feelings against them._

_Then, come on. Let them see your true form, Big Boss._

Skull face insisted.

_Do you want them to die?_

He closed his hands into fists, unsure on what to do. He knew what he should do, but everything was so baffling he couldn’t believe it was all really happening. Anyhow, he decided not to risk two innocent lives; too many had already been at stake.

Jack stood up again and moved some steps back before shapeshifting. A terrifying, huge grizzly bear stood in the same room as two harmless, helpless babies. He moved closer, sniffing their scent better. He would remember this. He would remember this scent till his last day on earth.

Then he peeked over to the children and they looked enchanted by the animal towering over them. He lowered his nose down, sniffing the twins. His nose moved on their bodies to reassure himself they were okay. Their scent was something completely new to him, sweet and unique. He loved it.

As they both giggled, they held out their small hands to touch his fur. Gently caressing it. The inquisitive tiny hands seemed to want to grab his whole muzzle. The scene made him lose focus, his body failing to hold the form that long as he turned back into a human.

Tears fell over his children, a little disturbed by the sudden lack of soft, cuddly fur they were touching just a moment ago. Sobs filled the room as he picked the boys up, in his arms, cradling them in an unseen tenderness, trying to be as careful as possible. Tiny hands, once again, resumed their soft prying adventure on his face. Every caress made him sob louder, crying desperately, as if his emotions came down all at the same time. All together.

He had forgotten how to feel. He had forgotten how to feel _alive_.

Jack brought them closer to his chest touching their forehead with his, first with one, then with the other. The children were making small noises as he was uncontrollably letting himself go in an show Skull face must have been enjoying quite a lot.

 _They are Solid and Liquid_ , he heard the voice say over his sobs. _You will see them again, eventually._

Jack started furiously shaking his head, as he moved to stand up looking at the black door slammed open. Guards entered the room and he stepped back till he hit the wall. His whole body arched over his sons, _no_ , he shouted, _no, no_.

He held the children to his chest, tight. They started to feel alarmed too, and he could hear their whimpers. The panic made his movements rushed and spasmodic, moving his head frantically from the babies to the guards as they were getting closer. Three armed humans.

 _Come on, daddy_ , one said in a mocking tone _, give us the babies and nobody gets hurt._

Jack kept shaking his head, with his eye wide in fear. He had the same expression he wore the first night in this hellish place, when he was just eighteen years old.

_Don’t take them away._

_Don’t take them away._

His mind was yelling words he couldn’t make out anymore. He started growling as the twins cried, like babies do, loudly. They were scared. The cry pierced his head.

_I will protect you._

Two guards started pulling his arms as one shot him a tranquiliser in the leg.

_I will protect you._

One of them got the crying twins away from his grip, as Jack roared wildly driving himself to shapeshift. One of his paws smacked a guard to the wall before he felt dizzy and crumbled down in his human form again; the tranquiliser taking the best on him.

_I am not fine, mom._

He looked at the guard holding the twins as he tried all he had to keep himself awake, grumbling sounds coming out from his mouth.

_But they will._

He huffed, his eye barely keeping open. Feet moved away from him, leaving the room. The cry of the babies was all he could make out when darkness covered him.

_I promise. They will be fine._

\--

Jack remembered The Sorrow’s words. The worst has yet to come, but you won’t be alone forever.

He was holding one of his now eight months old twins with his right arm, as the other was resting in his lap, using Jack’s big fingers as a toy. They were in his cell, the taste of death still in his mouth after the fight he just had; but he had been good, he had been

_He had been a good boy_

So they let him see and actually touch the children, for once. They had told him, since he was a male bear, that he was dangerous to his cubs.

He could kill them, they said. You know, _male bears eat their cubs in the wild_.

Jack kissed the cheek of the boy he was holding up and got a giggle in response. They are his Joy again. A reason to live and survive. He knew at some point they would shapeshift.

That would mark the time when would be forever taken away from him. Starting the death circle again, he would have to fight them. Kill them.

He hoped they would kill him first.

He had named them, because he would never call them as the XOF wanted him to. Jack wanted real names for them. They deserved at least that.

_Eli and David._

Jack forced himself to talk to them as much as he could, saying small words. He sang his mother’s lullaby to them.

Whenever he spoke to them, it was softly. He never really wanted to raise his voice even when they were having a fit. He had enough people shouting in his life for the three of them.

Their laughter was of genuine happiness. It was so _comforting_ to hear someone laugh, after such a long time. The twins looked like having conversations made of odd, cute sounds, and Jack enjoyed listening to those nonsensical hums. David had started growing a full head of brown hair just like his dad’s, while Eli had a distinct blond trail of hair. Jack thought that was _fascinating_. Amazing how these little cubs would make him wonder again. His mind whishing he could see them grow up and be healthy, happy boys. He usually had to stop his fantasies, for they were just that. Fantasies.

Dave, he nicknamed him as such, would touch his beard a lot whenever they were together or just stare at him for the longest time. He struck Jack as a silent type, much like him.

Eli, on the other hand, would _pull_ his beard and try to be more physical than his brother was. He vocalised a lot, pointing at or chewing everything he could find. Jack had to pick him up often, since the place they were in was unsanitary for such a small child.

He didn’t know where the babies went when they would leave his cell. They didn’t look disturbed by anything in particular nor they looked unfed, though. He really hoped they were alright. Jack’s anxiety would rile up just thinking about them not being under his watch.

Every single time, getting the twins back from him was a battle for the guards, since he would usually shapeshift to protect them. They soon learnt to shoot a dart when he wasn’t looking or when he was dozing off because of tiredness.

Waking up alone made the dad restless. He would spend at least an hour or two shapeshifted in his bear form, calling for his children.

No response.

\--

The children were one year old as the guards were making them stand upright in front of Jack’s cell bars. Their dad would touch those little heads with gentle strokes, since he couldn’t really manage much else. Yet, metal didn’t seem to stop the twins from enjoying some time with their father, which happened less and less as they grew older.

And they were growing so fast. He had missed the first time they had stood up and tried to walk. He had missed every little new thing they did or discovered.

He didn’t even know their birthday. He didn’t know what year it was. He knew their age because some medic would tell him so he could count. He could count how much time he still had with them before the inevitable.

Eli started pulling at his father’s long and unkempt beard as he vocalised something, making out the syllable “da” multiple times. Jack placed a hand behind the toddler’s back to keep him safe from falling. Dave was already sitting down with Jack’s big hand gently resting on his head.

Jack looked at his son eyes, shades of blue and green mixing together, as he kept mumbling something right to his father’s face. _Dadadada_. Eli looked very concerned with what he was trying to say and Jack thought that was funny.

_He thought that was funny._

_When had been the last time he had thought something was funny?_

He didn’t remember.

Jack hinted a smile, resting his head against the bars. _What is it, Eli?_ He asked, stumbling with his words, but the boy’s attention was focused on his brother, who had started imitating him. He looked at Eli moving towards his twin and trying to instigate a small, harmless fight.

_They are good._

A guard scoffed, looking at the scene. Jack raised his head, grasping a hand on one of the bars. He growled menacingly at the whole group of humans watching the scene as some kind of sick zoo exhibition.

That costed him the rest of his time with his sons.

Two of the guards got closer as the one who mocked him  retorted back at the growl with, _oh well, he’s getting violent guys. We better wrap this up._

Jack understood his mistake as he quickly, lowered himself down, grabbing his boys and moving them closer to the bars, as he begun to repeat his usual _, no, no_ in a rushed, apologetic voice. So much that the toddlers understood something bad was going to happen as they voiced out their complaints with sniffles and whimpers.

They started crying out loud when the two guards picked them from their father’s grip. He stood up immediately, reaching out a hand, shouting _no! no! no!_

_I’m sorry!_

_I’m sorry._

_Don’t take them away._

_Please._

He heard the cry of his sons as they disappeared at the end of the corridor. He held his hand out, still. The palm closed up in a fist as he roared, shifting to his bear form. Scratching his paw frantically against the wall, growling loudly, showing his teeth at the guards, clashing his body against the bars till his whole body felt weak and exhausted. Returning human made him just awkwardly pace around the cell, limping, whining like a lost soul.

These children meant so much for his mental stability. Now he could see a purpose in life, something to think about besides dying. He saw his mother in them. _He had to protect them_. This also made their absence unbearable to him.

It was a constant loop.

_Let me out._

\--

His children were two years old and they would start making out words or even full sentences. Eli was somehow always trying to fill his dad in regarding where they were and what they did even though it was mostly unintelligible. Jack understood that they slept in a bed and people in white dresses talked to them. They ate three times a day. Surprisingly. This was a turn of events he never thought of, even though in the back of his mind he knew this was just because they hadn’t shapeshifted _yet_. Dave spoke less fervently compared to his brother, and his speech pattern was more understandable for Jack’s brain to process. Dave already looked like an anxious boy.

They were finally allowed two hours together after three weeks of not seeing one another. Jack had been holding the twins, firmly, for about forty minutes as if he was trying to fill the void he felt during the boy’s absence. The toddlers were staying still, as if they had already started to learn how to behave around their dad. They were learning he was caring and loving but the situation made him irrational and odd. Even outside their father’s cell, they were probably being instructed not to complain and behave. Their childhood poisoned forever.

The quiet atmosphere somehow managed to make Jack relax, sitting down in a corner of the cell, feeling drowsy. His babies were safe in his lap; nothing bad was going to happen. It made him feel safe, too. Again. Finally.

He leaned his head towards his son’s, looking over them with a sleepy eye as Dave caught his face, placing his small hands on his father’s cheeks.

The man moved so that his nose would rub against the boy’s cheek in an animalistic but affectionate gesture. He murmured to both of them, quietly: 

_I love you_

Dave looked at his dad and patted his cheek. This child didn’t know anything about the world, about him, about the many he had killed. About Joy.

_I love you, daddy_

Eli straightened up to hug his dad’s neck, lying his head on his father’s shoulder as if to symbolise his own _I love you_. Jack decided it was alright to doze off for a bit. Just for a little bit. Holding his boys, his safe heaven.

He had moved from a fixation to another. His mind could at least wrap itself around the death of his mother- accepting it, in a way –, only because he had the chance to dig it away. Give her a figurative grave to rest in. His children were slowly fixing his broken heart, his broken mind. But that wasn’t healthy for them. He was an animal and as an animal he would live, always.

He knew that.

He took a ten minute nap. As he woke up he noticed the twins had followed his example, falling asleep huddled together in his lap. Their low breath was so sweet to his ears, no cries, no screams. Just peace. Their skin was soft and smooth, untouched by the roughness of fights. They smelled so good, always.

He sighed, sliding down on the concrete, lying on his back as the twins made cute, annoyed noises because of the sudden movements; he hushed them, reassuringly, wrapping his arms around the tiny bodies.

 _It’s okay_ , Jack hummed,

 _I’m here_.

\--

Then came a third.

\--

The cries of a child woke Jack up, slowly, as he felt light-headed and his body was numb, more than the usual. His instinct didn’t rile up so he didn’t jump on his feet, ready to protect his sons because _he didn’t recognise the crying child as one of his sons_. Or so he thought. The desperate yelps were coming from a newborn baby for sure, not a grown toddler like one his twins, that was for sure.

As he shifted onto his side, the sobbing continued. Jack was in the same room as two years ago. Black door, mirror, white walls, marble floor. Greyish sheet.

He wobbled up, standing for a moment to regain his full senses back before moving closer, as clearly there was a child curled up in the sheet. A single baby. Big blue eyes, just like his own. Contrary to his boys, this one already had a lot of hair for being about two months old. It looked brown with a reddish undertone.

The little boy – as it was yet another boy- kept screaming. It was so unsettling. Jack feared he was going to suffocate if he kept that crying going. It was painful. It felt painful.

Before anyone interrupted his train of thoughts, he knelt down and asked first

 _Is he another,_ he paused, _is he another son?_

From the speaker, Skull face’s voice echoed in the room. An oddly direct _yes_ was the only thing he replied with.

The atmosphere was disturbing. The child wouldn’t stop sobbing.

_Why are you giving me children?_

_This one was also a test, but he is weak._ The CEO wouldn’t answer the man’s question, avoiding it altogether and imposing his own topic. He didn’t sound too happy with this new _experiment_ , as he described how the baby had problems with his eyes and was sickly. He couldn’t see well, in short, and was almost blind on the left one.

_You know what you have to do, Big Boss._

_But even if he_ is _your kin, his chances to survive childhood are low._

Jack shapeshifted without being prompted to do so, as the baby screeched even more. _Was he really his son_? He questioned himself, just like he did with the twins.

He got closer to the tearful boy, who was exhausted at that point, hiccupping a lot in between sobs. _Please, don’t be scared_. Jack’s big bear nose moved across that tiny body as he poked one of the chubby cheeks with it. _Dad is here_. The cries toned down, now only sniffles and hiccups filled the room, while the baby drifted his eyes to the fluffy nose that was caring for him. _Good. It’s okay._ The baby clang his small hands onto it as if he wasn’t going to let go anytime soon.

As Jack shapeshifted back into his human form, he heard the cries riling up again. The little one was moving his hands desperately, searching for the comfort of that warm fur; Jack carefully picked him up, humming to the baby and guiding his small hand to touch his beard.

 _There you go,_ he whispered.

His son rested on his shoulder, quietly falling asleep. He was holding his tiny hand close to his beard.

XOF had named him Solidus.

Jack named him George.

\--

The news stated a police raid cleaned a facility used by a criminal organisation, guilty of abusing and torturing shapeshifters as if they were animals, making them fight to the death. Apparently, the law enforcers were alerted thanks to an ex guard who thought the whole ordeal was disgusting, as it was also breaking so many human right laws you couldn’t count on your ten fingers.

The CEO was killed in a car accident as he was trying to flee with his second and third in command. Skull face died a pitiful death, a mere consolation for all the torture he had inflicted upon hundreds.

The police discovered men, women, even children, many who suffered of severe psychological traumas and who would hardly reintegrate in society, if ever. Medics and scientists were interrogated upon the reveal of the disgusting practice of the berserk fights. The numbers counted seventy-five brain damaged shapeshifters, eleven completely lost to their animal side.

Of course the facility had tried to shut itself off, as the word spread about the police barging in. Mass confusion let some of the guards decide to let the shapeshifters go, as if they were real animals and would scatter away.

Mostly, the ones that were sound in mind lead the weaker ones, some died shot by other guards or trampled by the mob of screaming people who were claiming their freedom so dearly. Or simply, the feral shapeshifters killed others before fleeing. All of those who had lost their mind over their animal side fled into the woods, two were found dead, shot in the snow. Of the seventy-five who suffered brain damage, fifteen fled and were later found roaming the nearby forest or willingly found their way to a village or a town. One of them was never found.

Three children were missing from the experimental lab.

It was 2074.


	4. The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's title song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLddYrmClQw

The sun shone upon the long, straight road that cut through the middle of the forest, connecting various towns and villages of the Alaskan territory. It wasn’t too cold, at least for the usual late spring temperature.

“So, they _did_ call you.”

Two men sat inside their car, parked on the side of the road.

“I told you. They _called me_ and said they’d be here at noon. Why don’t you ever trust me?”

“Does anyone trust you, Adam? _Ever_? Be honest.”

Adam, short for Adamska, was a fifty years old Russian man whose face, reminded anyone of a cat. Oddly enough, this Russian didn’t really have a Russian accent but mostly a southern American one. People wondered why, and nobody ever got an answer on the matter.

Once Adam proudly wore a short cut of blond hair, which started greying very early; now, he wore it just as proudly, except it grew down to his shoulders and was a beautiful shade of silver. A trademark of his were the sharp face and meticulously cut moustache. He surely stood out from the crowd, with his constant half smile, as if he _always knew_ what was going on and with his confident walk; and probably for his spurs. Mostly for his spurs.

“Oh, Kaz, don’t worry. People learn to trust me even if they don’t want to. The only one who’s been resisting me for twenty years is you.”

Kaz, short for Kazuhira, usually hid half of his face behind a pair of aviators. As a young man, he used to wear them to put on a cool look for the ladies, but as the years went by they served more as a protection for his eyes, as his eyesight was disappearing rapidly. He could still see pretty well though, so it wasn’t a big deal for now. He was a mixed Japanese-American man who moved to Alaska in his twenties. If you didn’t look carefully at his eye shape or the way he behaved, you wouldn’t even know he might have had Japanese blood running in his veins: blue eyes, dark blond hair and a somewhat fair skin weren’t exactly your typical Japanese traits, afterall.

He grew grumpier over the years, usually complaining about everything and especially about money. The fact he had married Adam, who wasn’t really _careful_ with money, was deemed a “bad choice” in his book of bad choices. The book was mostly filled with Adam related ones, anyway.

Kaz sighed and rubbed his eyes with two fingers, lifting the sunglasses a bit.

“It is noon.”

“I know.”

\--

Kaz was talking with the architects they were waiting for, earlier in the car and Adam took the chance to venture inside the old, crumbling house they had bought a month prior. He couldn’t really imagine a welcoming house just _yet_ , since all he could really see was a tore down staircase, rotting wood and dirt everywhere.

Adam skipped through the big living room to what would end up being, or already was, the kitchen. The few pieces of furniture left were unusable, looking at their state of decay, but they reminded him of old pictures he had seen in magazines from about thirty or forty years ago. _This house has a story to tell_ , he thought as he passed a gloved hand on the barely standing table in the middle of the room.

Curiously prying in the room, he ventured towards one of the windows but had to stop at the sudden crack noise. Glancing down, he discovered he had walked over broken glasses. _This is going to be a challenge_ , he mumbled to himself quite expectantly as he tried to open up a window and meet Kaz’s figure right in front of him, still talking to the other man. The window opening must have been quite powerful since they had both turned to look at him.

“Do you like it?”

Kaz asked with half a smile, hands in his pockets.

“I do, in fact.”

Adam placed his chin over one of his hands, leaning on the windowsill.

“Is it far away enough from the town, for your tastes?”

He continued, giving out a chuckle.

“It will do.” Kaz shrugged, trying to sound deeply disappointed.

\--

Kaz placed a tall glass of iced tea on the little table on the balcony.

“You made me tea?”

Adam asked in a sardonic tone as the other man sat down with a huff on those small white plastic chairs they used for the outside, a beer in his hand. The Russian was petting their one year old cat, Nuke, calmly sleeping in his lap.

“I asked you to get me a bit of vodka, though.”

Kaz lifted his glasses and took a sip from the bottle, then lazily pointed towards his husband.

“I don’t like you drinking vodka.”

“It’s not like I ever get drunk.”

“Exactly.”

Adam chuckled and took the glass of tea in his hand.

“What, are you jealous that I don’t get drunk?” he questioned Kaz, whose only response was a grunt, taking another sip of beer. Adam emphasised the fact that it would take more time to make tea compared to just pouring down a glass of vodka. It meant Kaz had spent _time_ for him, and it was always an enjoyable topic to tease him about.

“It took me five minutes, don’t get all high on your horse there.”

He looked in the distance, trying to ignore Adam’s remarks. It’s not like he _doesn’t_ care, he just never understood what’s the big deal about showing it.

The sunset was nice, though, up from their apartment at the second floor of a small four stories building.

They had been living there for twenty years.

It was a small, cosy place for two men living alone, the position was also very handy to reach the town’s centre by foot. The shop owned by Adam’s best friend was down the road so she could visit easily, too.

It was a nice life.

As a young man Kaz juggled many jobs, always poor to the last cent. He had started working part-time since the age of sixteen, while he was still in Japan trying to help his mother. Adam, on the hand, was of a wealthy family. He was also very good at keeping that a secret.

He would end up helping Kaz with money, except he would use convoluted schemes, as he didn’t want Kaz to know about it. He would get a big grin of satisfaction from the guy as he knew he had done the best of jobs. Of course, Adam’s help was only a little nudge to some people, so that they would hire Kaz; in the end, he was really earning his paycheck.

“Thank you anyway, _sweetheart_.”

Kaz discovered the little helps he had been getting here and there only after he had successfully managed to open a restaurant, which became another restaurant, and another still. At the age of 35, he became the manager of a _chain_ of restaurants throughout the country; and money wasn’t an issue anymore.

So, he decided to give Adam a present.

“Ugh, don’t call me that.” A chuckle, “It sounds creepy coming from you.”

He had bought an old house, far away from everything, just for the two of them. For when they retire. For Adam’s dream of having a garden to take care of, or having a horse, or a dog. Or both.

Now the time had come for Kaz to reveal his gift, and _damn_ ,

_was Adam’s face worth twenty years of mortgage._

\--

The paint on the outside walls was drying perfectly, not even a scratch in sight. The bedrooms were almost completed: one was their bedroom, with a king size bed, the other one was a guest room with a queen one.

The bathroom was functional but still a mess, and the kitchen had all what you’d need to cook a decent meal, but working items and whatnot could be found lying around. Kaz would help the construction workers out whenever he could. It was tiring for Adam to live in chaos, but it was just for a little longer. Just for a little longer, and he could rest in his porch with his sight lost in the woods. They could take walks there, hunt or fish maybe. He’d be able to test his revolvers for real without noisy neighbours or having to move from home.

Of course, there would be no one else besides his husband around. He was alright with loneliness, though. He was alright with almost all his feelings.

 He _had_ to be alright with his feelings.

 

Except that one day, in late July,

When one of the workers had called him on the phone while he was out getting groceries,

“Sir,” one of the workers hurriedly replied from the other side, “Sir, you have to go to the hospital.”

_Why?_

“Sir, Mr. Miller had an accident, his leg is bad.”

_I see._

“Sir?”

\--

Kazuhira laid on the hospital bed, doctors moving around him like industrious ants. Soaked clothes. He looked lifeless. His sunglasses, broken, on the bedside table.

Nobody was looking at Adam; they were passing by and around him, as if time stopped. As if he was invisible. His face was stoic, even though he had rushed there. His breathing was calm.

 

Adam was alright with loneliness.

Adam was alright with almost all his feelings.

 

A nurse touched his arm, asking him to wait outside, that they will do their best; that he might walk again. That he was probably going to live.

The construction worker who had called him tried to explain what had happened; Adam remembered every word of their conversation, and yet he couldn’t make any sense to them. If he had been there, this mess wouldn’t have happened. If he had been there.

 

_If he had been there._

 

Sitting as if the situation was the least of his concerns, he waited surrounded by other people in the next room. Noise of mothers chatting, elderly people asking doctors for their check up, children pestering their parents on _what’s for dinner_ and _how is grandma_.

Life keeps moving around you even if you are stuck.

 

The same nurse came in after an hour, explaining how his husband’s left leg could be fixed via an operation but he wouldn’t be able to run anymore. He would limp. His right arm was also a little damaged, meaning that, in some years, he would have some muscular problems.

The nurse handed Adam his husband’s broken sunglasses.

“Thank you.”

Adam stood up, holding the glasses in one hand. He smiled politely before leaving the hospital with a composed but fast pace. The chilly air of the night hit him. His eyes became moist, one tear rolling down his cheek; he wiped it away nonchalantly.

 _Cold nights are the worst for weak eyes_ , he thought.

He started walking in the night.

\--

Kazuhira laid in his hospital bed, asleep after a successful operation. Adam was dozing off on a chair near him, arms crossed, head dangling.

A pair of new aviators sat on the bedside table.

\--

“I gotta get back as soon as possible.”

“No, you don’t.”

“They’re gonna make a fucking mess. Then I will lose money _and_ will have to hear your complaints for the rest of my life.”

Kaz sat up to eat his lunch, a week after his operation. He didn’t lose too much appetite, but the pain in his leg and arm was almost unbearable even though he was trying not to acknowledge anything had happened. He kept ranting about the workers, who already messed _him_ up, or how much money they’d lose if the renovation pace ended up getting changed. How this could affect the house in general.

 

“Thank you for staying.”

 

Adam cut him short, met by Kaz’s puzzled expression. Adam’s face was serious, he hadn’t smiled since that night, to the nurse. After a moment, Kaz softened a bit, sighing and reaching out to his husband with his injured arm, making a distressed noise as he opened his hand.

“You seem to be needing a hand, there.” He smirked weakly, trying to get some kind of reaction out of the Russian. In that moment, he was the same awkward kid in his twenties who didn’t know how to handle this very odd person Adam was. Kaz had always been very straightforward with his feelings. Adam was not. It was a problem for him, never quite sure he was reading the other man’s face correctly, and he probably wasn’t.

Adam held out his own hand, resting it in the other man’s.

“Did you just make a pun?" 

“Look, what am I supposed to do? Hugging you and whispering _I love you_ with a sad, sad voice?” Kaz playfully frowned, trying to pass it for a real shocked question.

 

“No.” Adam replied, holding Kaz’s hand, “This is just fine.”

 

Kaz could finally see the usual gleam of life back in his eyes, not completely, but it was there. He huffed and leaned on the edge of the bed, patting the other man’s head.

 

“I love you.”

“Thank you.” Adam replied, squeezing his hand harder.

\--

Adam was tending to his garden, watering flowers as their ten years old wolf dog paced around him.

“DD, sit. You’re going to make me fall.”

 

The noise of the door opening caught his ears, as limping steps (and a cane) came closer. DD barked happily at his other owner, who sat down in the shade, on their garden swing.

“Are you even growing something at this point?” Kaz asked, opening his newspaper. The dog slowly walked to him, asking for some cuddles.

“Look, whatever grows this year, you’re eating it.”

“Sure, as long as it’s free and I don’t have to go to town for it.”

He skipped through some pages, reading an article about government scandals and whatnot. Adam knelt down in the ground to move some of the plants and his back reminded him how old he was getting. He heard the ruffling of paper and Kaz’s reprimanding voice going _no! Down!_ to the dog. Then, a moment of silence, interrupted by an odd remark.

 

“God, this is disgusting.”

 

Adam turned around to the displeased man.

“What is?”

 

“You should read this,” he called him over waving the newspaper, “they enslaved a bunch of shapeshifters for more than ten years or some shit like that.”

The newspapers had covered the incident after a month from its breakout, apparently, the government was involved; it showed a picture of a deformed man who was in charge of this horror house, reporting how he had died on the same day of the police’s raid. Some other pictures showed the location of the facility. They suggested watching a TV program about it. It felt like a nightmare.

At the end of the article, there was a list of names of all the shapeshifters, to help friends and family to contact them; or just let them know their loved ones had passed.

 

_Joy Sears, deceased._

_Jack Sears, missing._

  
It was 2074.


	5. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time, it's the name of a whole album:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qoc8MYyu_J0&list=PLF01C28731E96D050

_I am holding my children’s lifeless bodies, they are mangled. Unrecognisable._

_There is a strong, cold wind blowing. Snow is covering everything, blood dripping off my clothes, my hands. It stains the blinding whiteness that surrounds me._

_I am crying._

_How did I end up like this?_

_My blind eye hurts. My sane eye can’t make anything out because of the tears. There is something right in front of me. Big, massive. Scary._

_“Ishmael”_

_I yell with every inch of strength in my body._

_“Why did you do this?”_

_I am desperate. All I feel is a deep hatred. Loneliness. Guilt. I couldn’t protect my sons either._

_The giant mass stands on two feet; it’s a grizzly bear._

_“Why did you kill my children?”_

_This time I whisper,_

_Slower and slower,_

_Why did I kill my children?_

_I hold the little bodies to my chest. The bear roars, like a thunder, like a bomb, like death itself. I cling to them as the bear falls down on his fours, as if it wanted to stomp on a prey._

_It’s like slow-motion._

_I see it second by second,_

_Falling,_

_On top_

_of my mother’s body._

_I scream and wake up._

\--

“Daddy, bad dream?”

 

Dave’s small hand touched his dad’s sweaty face as he abruptly woke up, panting, terrified. Jack sat upright after realising there is no bear, besides himself.

This doesn’t reassure him.

 

George was shifting nervously in his arms, whimpering. He also was woken up from the scream, as a result Eli was trying to distract his little brother by leaning over him.

 _No cry, you’re a big boy_ , Jack hears him murmur to the baby. _You’re a big boy._ Eli was just three and a half and one could barely make out what he says. _You’re a big boy_ , the toddler tells to his infant brother.

 

“Yes.” Jack admits, still shaking a bit.

 

“Yes. Bad dream.” He repeats, hurrying the twins to move in his arms too. He holds them all, his sons. George still not happy about this early awakening, Eli resting face down on his dad’s chest with a concerned expression, Dave gazed at Jack’s face, as he held onto his neck.

 

_Daddy, you’re not okay._

Dave says tiredly, yawning as he hugs his father tighter.

_When will you be okay?_

\--

They had run away, into the forest.

He didn’t know what to do, sinking in the late winter snow. The children were scared. Hungry. Cold.

 

So was he.

 

Nobody taught him how to be a parent; humans made him forget how to live for himself, let alone taking care of other people. Of children.

His best guess was to find a town. The children could find food and shelter there. So they headed south.

Jack had roamed around in his stolen clothes for a week. The children starving. He didn’t know what to feed George with. The baby would sleep a lot and wouldn’t even cry anymore. The twins could barely walk, they lacked the energy to do so.

It snowed again. The cold was insufferable.

 

He shapeshifted into his animal form many times to keep them warm, but whenever that happened they would halt their hopeless walk since his children weren’t able to grip on his back well, with their tiny hands.

 

When the breakout had happened, they were put together for a change in cells XOF had planned. Since the guards didn’t know where to put him, they placed him for two hours with his children in the same white room he met his sons in. Except they never retrieved the children. Jack heard a commotion from behind the door and suddenly a man fell over it. The door was now open, the guard dead. No one else in sight but a terrifying atmosphere of panic. He could smell fear.

 

Eli was a curious boy and immediately tried to get closer to the body, and complained a bit when his dad caught him in the move. Dave was sitting down on the floor with George in his arms, who was awake but silent, as if his little brain was studying the situation.

 

Jack moved closer to the body, sniffing the air. An arm spread out, to protect the children. Blood was on the ground, a corpse lying there.

_The call for freedom._

His chance. His chance to get out. After ten years, to see the sunlight, to breathe fresh air, to run away. To go back to life.

He started undressing to get the guard’s uniform: bland khaki pants, a white sweater, mountain shoes and a jacket with the emblem “XOF” on the back. They were stained in red on the front.

 

There was an odd feeling about wearing normal clothes again. Wearing shoes.

 

Just, _wearing things_.

 

He quickly gathered his children, the twins held onto his neck and both secured George in the middle, like a well-working team. Their dad zipped the jacket close around them, firmly grasping his sons in his grip. He stepped outside of the room and dashed on the opposite side of the noise, until he got to a corridor with windows; he was on the first floor, only one to go. Dave asked what was going on, while looking at the people outside, killing one another. The police was there. Shapeshifters were going rogue.

Jack covered the child’s eyes as he resumed his running, no explanation.

 

_Run_

_Run_

_Run_

_Down the stairs, left, right,_

_Running past people, avoiding roars, and yells, and gunshots_

_George is crying,_

_Eli is scared,_

_Dave keeps asking what is happening._

 

_I don’t know._

 

Jack opened a big door with a crash panic handle and _there it is_. The outside. The air. The snow. The natural light of the day was hurting his eye as fresh air filled his lungs. He had dreamt for this moment; a far away hope of a fool.

 

He heard a gunshot that was too close, with the rustling of feet from his left. He moved slowly to the corner of the building to investigate: there was a breech in the gates. Carefully trying to hold his children as If everything was alright, he advanced towards the opening.

 

_Please, let me be free._

 

_Please._

 

His foot hit something. The female wolf shapeshifter of that day. _Jack, you will be fine._ She was dead, like his mother was. He jolted towards the hole, trying not to squish the children while squatting down to pass trough. He could hear people telling him to stop, a gunshot to his right.

 

_He was out. He was out, he was free._

_He was free._

 

Jack ran. For a moment his mind was focused on holding still the babies, ignoring their cries and questions.

 

_Run, Jack, Run away._

He had run so much his legs went numb and he ended up falling in the snow, panting; sweat dripping from his forehead. George suddenly stopped crying when his father’s sobs covered his. The twins, confused and terrified, were sniffling and asking him _why, why are you crying_

 

_Daddy why are you crying_

 

_Daddy_

 

_What happened?_

\--

As they were starving in the cold, Jack began having hallucinations: he still heard the screams of tortured shapeshifters or those forced to fight. He felt blood in his mouth. He would mumble _you’re a good boy_ or _you are a winner_ as he stumbled in the snow.

 

_He was dying._

 

_His children were dying._

 

He didn’t even have tears to cry anymore: _was this what he deserved, after ten years of agony?_

_Was this going to be the end?_

He just wanted to be free once more, to feel

_To feel like a person again._

Jack fell in the snow, the twins were barely awake, calling out for their dad with the softest voice; George didn’t move, eyes closed.

 _I want you children to live_ , he forced himself to tell them, in a desperate voice, _I’m so sorry_.

 

Jack lifted his face to the trees and there she was,

 

_Joy._

 

She was like a cut out from his childhood memories of roaming the forest together. She was beautiful. Healthy. Warm. The snow felt less overbearing as he gazed at her face.

 _Mom, I don’t know what to do_ , he spoke to the wind. The twins looked at their father. He held tight onto the three boys, as he stumbled foot in front of foot, towards nothing in particular.

 _Mom_ , he kept repeating, looking directly at the trees,

She smiled at him,

He smiled back,

_Mom, did you come back?_

_Will you stay with me, now?_

The two children were calling their dad, a bit louder this time. He kept walking.

 

 _No, I cannot be with you anymore, Jack_. She pointed at the trees. _You have something to do_.

 

Jack looked to where his mother was pointing. A house; there was a house in the snow.

_You have to keep your children safe._

_This is my will._

_Jack._

\--

The house was empty but decorated and clean, meaning it was probably only used in spring or summer for hunting or holidays. Jack didn’t know what else to do beside shapeshifting into his bear form to bend the door enough and get it open. He took his children one by one, with his big bear mouth, placing them in the living room. The house smelled of dust and cold, but it did have a cosy vibe.

 

Soon after, he rushed to the fireplace, trying to start a fire using the wood near it. He had been trained by his mother to set fires in the forest, for camping, and he didn’t forget that. He didn’t forget anything his mother had taught him. It was all coming back to him.

 

Nice sparkles of light grew out from the wooden blocks, eating it away fast. Warm waves brushed his tired face. Jack closed his eye for a moment before taking the children in front of it; he couldn’t rest yet. He had to find food, find how to turn on the heating (he was surprised he even remembered a thing like that even existed in the first place), make them have a bath.

 

_Bathing._

 

_What a weird concept._

 

He found the electric panel in a small room under the stairs: turning it on made the house come alive with electricity, everything beeping excitedly. The twins made a surprised but tired gasp, slowly looking around the room. Eli was holding George, as they were getting warmed up by the fire. Dave sneezed, lying on the floor and rubbing his eyes with his hands.

 

Their dad found the heating panel and set for a good twenty-four degrees Celsius, as warm air started pouring out. Jack moved back to the living room, the twins were still weak but seemed more lively since they were having their usual incomprehensible chat between one another; he was fearing for George’s life. Jack asked the boys to sit still there and not to get too close to the fire. _It will hurt you_ , he explained as he picked up the youngest one, taking him to the kitchen. He sought in the fridge: empty, besides condiments. The shelves were full of food though, but not the one he needed. Milk.

 

_He needed milk._

 

The tiny body in his arms was still, eyes closed. He breathed slowly and almost irregularly. His rosy cheeks were now pale.

 

Jack kissed George’s forehead, then he frantically resumed his search for any kind of milk. He pushed away stuff, making things fall onto the floor, sugar and flour were scattered across the tiles. He was out of hope. He sat down, holding his little boy, asking for forgiveness. _I’m not a good father._

 

Jack turned his head, looking towards a lower shelf you would have to kneel down to see. Powdered milk. _I’m not a good father_ , he repeats, as he grabbed the package and stood up, forcing his brain to read again, to understand the instructions on it. He was forcing himself to move like a human in a kitchen. _He was pretending he could live again, pretending he could still act like his self from ten years ago._

 

Boil water, pour powder, wait.

 

He went to check on the toddlers and gave them some cookies he had found, at least they could eat something in the meanwhile. He would open can food later since he had found tuna, meat and vegetables. On his way back to the kitchen, he took a pillow from the sofa, placing it on the kitchen table and put George down on it. His next step was searching for something to make for a baby bottle out of. A tall plastic bottle was under the sink and he used a plastic glove to make a rudimentary sucker at the top, washing it all as he could with warm water and soap.

 

This all was putting his damaged brain under an immense amount of stress. He was behaving like he used to, ten years ago, except it hurt every time he’d walk upright. It hurt, reading words and processing them. His movements as a _fake human_ were sloppy, his hands not firm.

 

After he had poured milk in the bottle and gently held his son, Jack slowly slid down to the floor once more, tiredly awakening the baby. George didn’t start sucking the milk immediately, but Jack had to force it in the child’s mouth. When he started eating, it felt like a blessing.

 

His eyes were heavy as the constant sucking sound filled the kitchen, his head falling onward.

 _No_ , he told himself, _you can’t rest_.

_Not yet._

\--

The night was claiming the sun as it disappeared gradually in the forest.

The house was warm now, the fire in the living room was almost dead and Jack was sitting in the bathroom’s tub with the twins splashing water onto each other. On his lap, he was holding George, who was feeling so much better with a full tummy and free from dirty clothes.

 

Jack, for the first time in ten years, was taking a pleasant bath. His head felt light from fatigue, water dripping down from his wet hair and unkempt beard. His mind was roaming as he rested his back at the end of the bathtub, looking at his children playing with water and bathing accessories.

 

Eli was trying to balance the sponge on George’s head, but it kept falling as the infant constantly turned his head to his dad. Dave was laughing softly at his twin’s anger at this deplorable failure.

There wasn’t much water in the tub, actually. He had cleaned them all first and then he had finally felt the warmth of water on himself. He didn’t dare to look at the colour of it as it was swept away in the drain.

 

The children did say _ew_ or _yuck_ , as they were waiting on the carpet, he didn’t know if it was referred to the water or to his body, covered in scars. Jack didn’t have the strength to shower staying upright, so he ended up sitting down.

 

Eli deemed that _unfair, because dad was having all the fun in the tub_ , so Jack invited them in again, getting George in first and helping the twins inside. He let the water flow to fill the tub a bit. The three children were thrilled and he wondered where they found the willpower to move so much, after they just avoiding starvation. They were really something else.

Dave stopped focusing on his angry brother, since the sponge game wasn’t entertaining enough for him, and shifted to his very tired dad. He called out for him. Jack promptly woke up from his drowsiness, greeted by his son’s splashing water in his direction. The boy stood up, after “grasping” water in his hand and “smearing” it all over his dad’s face, following the gesture with a giggle.

 

Jack gasped. He might have been faking the surprise or maybe it was genuine, as he also heard Eli laugh and repeat the action on George, who wasn’t very happy about becoming his brother’s play toy. The baby vocalised his protests, moving his hands in an attempt to push Eli away. Dave kept touching his dad’s face, probably amused by the wet beard’s texture. Jack found a moment to sneak his hand between his son’s neck and shoulder to tickle him. The child’s reaction was priceless, as he started whining _no_ , over and over, while laughing and trying to hide on the other side of his dad’s body.

 

Jack gave out a soft chuckle.

 

He felt like crying, which was good, he thought. It meant he wasn’t numb anymore. He kept chuckling as the bathroom had Eli and George’s fighting noises and Dave emerging from his hideout. The chuckles evolved into sniffing, quiet sobs. It wasn’t desperation to drive his tears anymore.

 

_It was relief._

 

He was playing with his children. They were okay. He was outside. He was okay.

Jack held a palm close into a fist. He did that gesture many times in those ten years; it helped him keeping track of reality. He used the other hand to dry his sane eye.

“Are you hurt?” Dave asked, suddenly concerned, peeping his head closer to his father. “I’m sorry, daddy.” He thought the tears were because of his little stunt.

 

His dad shook his head, sniffing in. He picked the boy up and hugged him, his face close to the boy’s as he snuggled in.

 

“I’m not hurt. Don’t apologise.”

 

The position felt so cosy. Jack wanted to rest, rest for many years. He wanted to forget and be forgotten. The realisation of being free from captivity was too much for him.

_How will he live from now on?_

Everything is different. He is different. The world is different.

 

He held David as if the child could comfort his aching heart and his tired mind. Eli asked his brother if dad was alright, George was patting his father’s leg.

\--

That night, Jack sat on the bed to sleep. It was comfortable, but it gave him an odd feeling somehow. He took his sons and placed them onto the bed with him. They were sadly dressed just with big shirts he had found in the wardrobe. Their old clothes were currently drying after being washed, Jack would try and patch any eventual holes back somehow.

 

Dave fell on one of the pillows and nuzzled in it, yawning. His twin dived in over his brother, leaning over to look at his face, just to bother him. George was walking on his fours, laughing at his two brothers little quarrel; Jack didn’t know how much the baby was actually _seeing_ of all his surroundings, due to his blindness on his left eye, but at least he was having a laugh at this whole situation.

 

Their dad lifted the warm looking sheets and placed himself under, helping the boys too. He held George, again, while trying to relax with his back resting onto the pillow. It was hard for him to understand the concept of quiet, of peace; he had forgotten what it felt like. He yawned, too. The twins didn’t seem as like their fight was over just yet, as they were having fun fighting one another. They acted like little cubs for real. Jack laid there, with the youngest one slowly falling asleep on his stomach. He petted the baby’s hair, pensively.

 

Two weeks ago, he was killing somebody with his bare hands. He didn’t even believe life itself even existed anymore. Two weeks ago, he didn’t remember what sunlight felt like.

 

And now, he was snuggled in a bed. Not rightfully _his_ bed, mind you, but that was a safe heaven in comparison. He felt bad for busting into someone’s house and taking it over, but there was no other option; they would have died in the cold otherwise.

 

He quickly moved a hand on the other pillow to make a sound and catch the two fighting toddler’s attention. “Sleep.” was the only thing he said. Eli protested, crawling towards his dad very loudly, biting softly his arm as a joke after insisting he wasn’t tired. Dave sarcastically (Jack guessed that was sarcasm and that Dave was exceptionally talented for it at such an early age) laid down all sprawled and started faking a very loud snoring sound.

 

Jack moved his arm away from the blond twin and caught his face, delicately pushing his cheeks with his thumb and index. “No sweep!”, Eli stated again, his pronunciation, already hard to make out, was distorted because of his dad’s hand. He freed the child, who suddenly turned to his brother for backup, except Dave had exhausted all his sarcasm and was now full blown asleep.

 

“Sleep.” Jack repeated, with a hushed voice. He slid down, till he was lying horizontally, holding George so he could gently fall to his side. The man’s position became quickly like the one of a baby himself, as if he was scared his body could be attacked out of nowhere. He made sure his hand could reach Dave’s far out position easily, might anything happen. Eli crossed his arms and also sled down under the sheets. It was kind of comical.

 

“Goodnight.”

“I am not sleepy.” Eli retorted.

 

Jack kissed his cheek and placed an arm over his three sons after turning off the light. He stayed awake till Eli gave up and started his little snoring.

 

Jack slept.

 

He slept for hours until a nightmare disturbed his needed rest; he dreamt of snow, he dreamt of blood and agony. He dreamt of himself as a killer. He dreamt of his mother’s unseen corpse.

 

He dreamt of death.

 

Jack woke up screaming.

\--

The twins were still way too young to understand anything as a serious matter, they didn’t have the ability to analyse their father’s pain, yet. It wasn’t a visible scar, besides the obvious ones on his body or his blind eye, that was hurting him. But even as toddlers, they had a sense of what was going on with their dad was deeper than that.

 

_Why does he cry seemingly out of the blue?_

_Why does he wake up sweating and screaming?_

_Why does he make scary noises even when he’s not a bear?_

 

The worried twins wouldn’t question eating their soup or tuna with plates and spoons, but while sitting on the floor instead that on chairs at the table. They wouldn’t question why they would be put to sleep on the sofa but their dad would almost never join in with them and preferred sleeping on the floor. Why he felt the need to shapeshift for a couple of hours, even if they were inside a house, as night comes and he could hear wolves howling in the distance.

For now, these behaviours were just the norm, they were what their dad did and the children couldn’t question it.

 

The house provided a TV, it showed the boys a lot of things. It surely made it easier for them to learn words, compared to the little vocabulary their dad used. As the kids wondered in awe at the colours and people, Jack felt distant and scared. TV reminded him humans were everywhere, they were deceiving and dangerous. He would see other shapeshifters in the news or in other programs, treated the same as other humans. They were okay; but it was a lie. In his head, that was a big ass lie.

 

On TV, they talked about the scandal. About what he had suffered, that inferno. But nobody could understand, nobody could describe it. He had lost himself in there, he had lost his mother in there. No human could ever make it out into words. He barely could and he didn’t want to remember. 

 _It was unfortunate_ , they said.

_It was a disgrace,_

_A pity. So many lost lives_.

_How could that happen, for more than ten years? Involving the government? How-_

 

Jack turned it off and felt like throwing up. He lied down on the carpet, as the kids were asleep on the sofa; his stomach was burning as he held onto it, thinking it would rip open and kill him.

Dread covered his body. They were making him remember it will never be okay.

 

 _He_ will never be okay.

 

He will never be truly free.

\--

They used the house for two whole months, rationing the food. Jack had thought to leave the children to hunt, since the snow was melting and the air was warmer. In his mind, though, the babies were always in danger. Also, he couldn’t leave two three years old and an eight months old on their own.

 

Jack had stolen some clothes he had found in the house, pushing them in a backpack he was filling with things for when they would eventually move out. At least, now George had started eating other things besides milk, except they had to always be reduced into a mush. It would still be hard to find food if they were to go back into the wild.

_The logical conclusion was to find shelter in a city, right? That was the best option, of course._

It wasn’t.

 

Jack knew. He knew that was what he should do. But resting, peacefully, in a lonesome house had him grown warier and warier: _he was thinking straight again_ , or at least he believed he was.

 

He definitely was not.

 

In the back of his mind he kept fearing humans to an unbelievable extent, the stress he was put on just to talk and show his children how to do things made him more susceptible to threats from the outside.

 

_They would not go to town._

 

Not now at least,

 

He wasn’t ready.

\--

The sun was shining and he took the children outside so they could enjoy some of it; they would move away in two days, he had decided. He would always stay in his bear form when they were roaming the forest, just to be sure. Just to be

 

_Safe._

 

He was lying down in the warmth just about a hundred meters from the house, with George moving around him on his fours, stopping sometimes to muster the strength to stand on two feet by clinging onto his dad’s fur. He failed most of the times, but at least there was an attempt.

Right when he had closed his eye, sighing loudly in this quiet moment, he heard Dave shouting. Immediately alerted, he stood up, George falling on his butt in the process. He looked panicked towards his boys and

 

And Eli was,

 

Eli was a _bear_. On top of his brother. He had unexpectedly turned into a cub; creamy fur and a plump body, just like a real cub. The little bear looked at his dad and growled excitedly, trotting towards him. Dave rolled on his side and walked behind his brother, still a bit confused on what had just happened. In the end, Jack never really explained the twins what they were, so the moment of shock was perfectly understandable.

The big bear sat down, his massive body was highlighted by the human-like position he was in.

 

The little cub was making all kind of noises as he was picked up in his dad’s paws.

It was very odd for Jack. He didn’t really expect it to happen. He smelt Eli like the first time he had met him and his brother: the same sweet scent. Somehow, pride filled him. Eli’s colour reminded him of his mother’s fur, since she was a Kermode bear; he held his cub firmly in his paws. The warm feeling of holding your kin, buried in distant memories.

 

All of a sudden, he missed his mother more than the usual.

 

Dave didn’t want to look jealous, trying his best not to let it surface. He picked George up, stumbled near his dad and sat down. George was moving frantically towards Jack, probably wanting to understand what he was holding since he couldn’t recognise Eli. As he released Eli and turned back to a human, the child followed his father’s example. The transformation took a lot of energy out of the boy, but it didn’t seem to affect his usual cocky behaviour. The first times barely last fifteen minutes for most children, as the shapeshifter grows older and older, they can extend their usual shepshifting time. Jack, up to now, could last around sixty-eight hours.

 

“Daddy, I’m like you!” Eli exclaimed, thinking he was going to be the only one. Jack nodded, while moving on his knees, _good job_. He shifted his eye to Dave and wondered if maybe they were different. Eli could, but Dave couldn’t?

Then, Dave stood up, handing his baby brother to his dad.

“Hold him!”

Jack was confused but, of course, obeyed and held an equally confused George. Then, the child charged his brother for the sake of fighting. Their dad didn’t know what to do and actually wanted to stop this toddler fight, but Eli was too tired to shapeshift again and Dave was just pulling his hair anyway. He wasn’t too much against his children fighting, just because it’s a way _to understand how to fight back_.

A minute passed and Eli found himself with his twin topping over him this time, as a cub. Apparently Dave just needed more impromptu fights. He was a brown cub, identical to how Jack was when he was small.

 

The cub was “welcomed” by his brother’s angered gasp, as if David had entered a private party without invitation. A bear party. Eli started punching the other cub, who growled in protest and ran to his dad, whining. Jack patted his head and repeated, _good job_. He smiled, pride clearly showing off his face.

This makes things _way_ easier, he thought.

 

He hoped.

\--

From the woods, Eli waved back to the house they had been using up to that point. He shouted a goodbye.

Spring was showing on trees and grass; flowers started popping out everywhere. The twins both had a backpack because _they wanted to help_. Jack had his filled to the brim with all the things they could use.

 

George was sleeping, firm in his dad’s jacket, almost like a kangaroo pouch.

The twins were holding a hand of their dad’s each, as the family slowly started to walk away from their hiding place. The forest was chirping, the children were talking about all the amusing things they were seeing.

 

Jack didn’t know where they would go; soon they would have to stop and talk with humans, to get food and help. He thought he would get accustomed to the idea.

  
Jack thought this could work.


	6. The Wilderness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's title song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHqbQnTeuKY
> 
> this chapter might be edited later. I just feel like posting, it was lightly beta'd so forgive any mistakes you might find.

Fast footsteps echoed in the night, hurried running through the small town streets. Reaching the lonesome houses that border with the forest, the pale moon shone on the boy whose urgent run abruptly stopped. He was panting, a dirty bag on his shoulder. The boy sniffed the air before turning into a brown bear cub, securing the bag on his back; he kept running, seemingly after having found a scent to follow. He disappeared into the woods.

\--

“Where the _hell_ have you been?”

Eli asks his brother, muttering the sentence in his teeth not to let anyone hear.

“I’m sorry, the store just didn’t want to close and the old woman kept looking out from the window,” Dave explained, placing the bag down with a huff and drying the sweat on his forehead with the back of one hand “I got canned food and some clothes.”

“You’ve been out too long, he will notice.”

Eli knelt down to look inside the bag and took out books and magazines.

“This is not canned food.”

“Look, George has got to read something. Besides, the canned food is at the bottom of the bag. Don’t be a dick.”

The blond twin frowned as he turned around to meet a towering figure in the night light. Eli whispered under his breath, _I told you he would notice_.

“I’m sorry…” a small voice came from behind the tall presence. George was holding his dad’s hand and was toying with a button of his oversized jacket with the other. “Dad really wanted to see why you had been outside for so long and—“ the boy was interrupted by one of his brothers.

“Dad, I’m alright.” Dave made some unsure steps forwards, “See? I’m fine.” He pointed at himself as his father held out a hand. Dave took it and let the man come closer to sniff his scent and see if there was something wrong. The smell was different. There was the smell of humans on him. The man growled as Eli picked up the bag and showed it to him.

“It’s useful things, Dad. Food.”

Dave gestured his brother to take it closer; their father dropped George’s hand in order to shapeshift. A big, bulky bear appeared in the darkness. He started sniffing the things inside the bag, taking them out one by one. His movements were husky and frenetic, as he started pacing around the area in which the cave they were using as a temporary shed was located.

George wanted to follow his father but Eli grabbed his hand and ordered him to stand still; he obeyed rubbing his right eye out of tiredness. “Eli, my bad eye hurts.” He muttered in a pitiful voice. His complaint went unnoticed as he moved a hand to grab his brother’s jacket.

 “Great job, idiot. I wonder how much it’ll take him to cool down after this.”

“You were _in_ with the plan. We all were; don’t put the blame on me. I had to steal from the garbage of an old woman’s store, be a little more grateful.” Dave raised his voice a bit, annoyed by his twin’s sudden change of heart.

“Yeah sure, except you weren’t here as he was basically going nuts and I had to make up some fucking excuses.” Eli pushed his twin’s shoulder. Dave didn’t respond to the provocation. He stood still and only stared angrily in the other’s eyes. Then, he moved towards George and picked him up.

“Come on, let’s go get some sleep” he whispered to his younger brother.

Eli picked up the scattered things on the grass and placed them back inside the bag. He heard his father returning to the cave as he was throwing the sack somewhere behind a couple of rocks.

The fire was still alive and warmed the air inside the inhabited space, the three children sat around it. Skinny and dirty, but alive. Dave and Eli had turned ten someday this year, but they didn’t know. They never had a birthday. George was almost seven and his eyes never got better; on the almost blind one they had put a medical eyepatch to avoid infections but it was hard to change with new ones, so they would wash it. He had turned into a small reddish bear cub at the age of two and a half. They all wore overgrown clothes so they could keep using them even as they’d get older, their faces full of little scars.

Their dad came in grumbling and wouldn’t want to shapeshift back to human.

“Dad, please calm down. You’re pushing yourself.” Dave was holding George whose face was buried in his brother’s chest, probably trying to sleep. “Nobody followed me, nobody saw me. I stayed down there for like twenty minutes, tops.” The big bear moved closer to his cubs and started sniffing Dave’s face, before licking one of his cheeks, growling softly as the boy raised his arms to hug the bear’s neck.

“It’s alright. I’m sorry, dad.”

The bear turned back into a human, a man clearly overwhelmed by fatigue appeared, holding the boy in his arms and hiding his face in Dave’s shoulder.

“I will never leave you like this again, I promise.”

Eli sighed with a resigned face, as his twin had to comfort their father.

As long as he could remember, their father had always been like this but in these later years he got more paranoid and dependent to them. The twins started dealing with fire, cooking and basic survival techniques at the age of five, when their dad would still try to speak more than one sentence per day. He had taught them how to read and write as they were also important survival skills. He did venture into one town he had deemed _far enough_. He never explained far from _what_ exactly, but the children never pushed it. Eli and Dave were six and they remember walking among other people and how odd it felt. How odd their father looked.

He was extremely uneasy and at some point they had to stop because he was almost throwing up in an isolated alley. A woman asked if she could help, seeing three small children around a sick man; their father’s response was growling and shouting _leave them alone_. He shapeshifted into a bear, briefly, as people around there were ready to call the police. The twins would remember the sheer terror on their father’s face when people started looking at him. How they looked at him; the thought of humans taking away his children, all he had, was crawling down his spine.

He fled.

Night would be the only time they’d go to town from then on. Just for short periods, to rummage through rubbish like real animals. Books, newspapers, magazines, comics, the children would read anything just to entertain themselves: they weren’t like their dad, they knew. They had realised that. The society portrayed in those words pictured shapeshifters as normal people, you wouldn’t know the difference from a human.

For his children, Jack was still human.         

He was a good man trapped in an animal body and they didn’t know how to help him.

\--

The children’s shapeshifted forms were still kind of small, as their size didn’t match their human ones: they’d grow to an adult size later in their teen years or early twenties, while for now, they always looked like six or seven months old cubs.

Jack roamed the forest with his three children grasping on his furry back with their claws. The children rarely stayed bears for too long, be it the fatigue transformation would cause them or the fact that they were, indeed, more comfortable as humans.

They ended up living a semi-nomadic life, staying in caves or abandoned houses, hoping they would survive the winter. He never taught his children how to hunt. Ishmael would kill for him. Every time he would kill a deer or win against wolves or foxes, he felt at ease, as if putting an end to someone’s life was the only thing that made him comfortable. He would eat raw meat. He taught his children how to cook and dismember the carcasses. Wild fruit and vegetables were also their most common option, to avoid the bloodthirsty sensation in their father.

As the children grew older, they forced him to move closer to human settlements and eat human food. They came by to know how and where to get food; Jack didn’t like the idea of them talking to humans but the twins had sneaked out before. So they wouldn’t die.

So they could keep on living.

Since the age of seven, Eli had started to disobey his father more and more just because he could clearly see there was no logic, besides survival, in Jack’s thoughts. David, on the other hand, would usually indulge the man in his paranoias, and sometimes he was also able to influence his father’s choices; he was the only one who could always, without fail, understand what Jack’s grunts or huffs meant.

George was accepting. He accepted his father the way he was, never trying to do anything drastic, since he was still a very young child. The boy idolised him, he thought his father was very brave and strong; whenever that mask of strength and bravery would fell under the pressure of his mental instability, George always tried to be a physical comfort for Jack. It was the only way he knew how to deal with him.

Jack had never wished this upon them but he wasn’t getting any better. Ten years of captivity, almost ten other years of survival. He loved his children more than himself. For them, he wouldn’t sleep or eat if that was necessary.

His old memories were starting to fade away, the good ones. _The ones of his mother._ It was hurting him, not remembering her voice. What her touch felt like. The memories of his house and his life before all of this begun to really resembled a fairytale, unreal, distant.

_What was grandma like?_

David once asked him. They only knew there had been, somewhere, a mother to their father but they knew little to nothing about her.

_She was,_

_everything._

\--

The sons ended up being curious about their father’s past as they would ask him again and again. _Where were you born? What happened to grandma? How did you lose your eye?_

“Why are you always so quiet?”

George leaned on his father’s back, looking at his face. Jack was trying to open a can of pickles, sitting on the dusty ground with his back turned from the fire behind him.

His eye was shifting uncomfortably.

“Like, aaaalways so silent?” the boy asked with a curious and innocent tone.

A moment of silence, as he looked in the woods.

“Animals don’t talk.” He stated to his confused son; Dave’s voice made his younger brother turn his head towards the fireplace.

“Stop saying that,” he reprimanded his father with an annoyed tone of voice, “we are humans.” There was worry all over Dave’s face, as this wasn’t the first time their father would highlight their animal side. “You have to get over _it_.”

Jack’s face twitched in discomfort as he grumbled and tightly closed his fists around the can and knife he was holding.

“Are you alright?” George’s eye was fixed on his father as he softly questioned him. Jack’s response was to move to his side and gently take the boy into his arms, making George rest on his lap. “Dad” Dave’s voice echoed behind his shoulders, “Dad!”

“Dave, leave it.”

Eli spoke, as he was lying down near the fire, with his arms behind his head and his eyes closed. The less Eli had to deal with this kind of melodrama between the members of his family, the better he was.

“Dad?”

George knew these hugs were always because his father needed urgent comfort. He was usually the one who would get caught into these cosy traps since he was still small.

“You all” Jack kept looking forward, into the woods,

“You are not” he paused for a moment, “animals.”

His arms held the child closer to his chest as the twins gazed over at him.

“I’m sorry.”

_His mother was looking at him from the woods, again._

\--

Conflict rose when Eli began distancing himself more and more. By the time he was ten, his patience was at its limits, he couldn’t stand his father’s stunts and extreme dependence to his own sons. He stopped sleeping near his brothers, barely touching Jack. The boy was piling up anger inside, leashing out on his twin or his little brother every time they would indulge their father’s behaviours. He tried to fight his father multiple times. He was the cause of their suffering, he thought.

Eli couldn’t understand what was going on in Jack’s head, what pushed him so far from humans and civilization. What his motivation was for forcing them to live their lives in the forest. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea of a parent doing _this_ to their own children. But this child’s feelings weren’t just made of hate or resentment. He was hurting.

Eli, truly, loved his father,

And he was watching his self-destruction.

When he was younger he would remember his father trying to converse with them. He would explain things or even show them how to behave in the forest. He had always been odd, his emotions would be unstable most of the times; but Eli remembered him smiling. He remembered his chuckle. Years passed and the man his son once thought was strong, caring, proud, showed his true colours, a dying mind.

Eli didn’t hate his father.

He hated what was happening to him.

“I don’t feel good” Dave said hesitantly, with a nauseated tone from the top of Jack’s bear back. Since the night earlier, the child had been having stomach pains because of hunger. Jack made the boy dismount and shifted back to his human form to examine him. Dave was extremely skinny, since they would eat a maximum of two times per day and it was never that satisfying. It was understandable how, at some point, they would get sick.

Jack was holding George, who had been complaining about his eye for a while now. He was whispering about the pain while hiding his face in his father’s shoulder.

Eli casted a spiteful look at the scene, his brothers suffering because this man didn’t want to face his issues. Dave, though he was the one needing care, was trying to persuade Jack into going to town. _George needs care_ , he pushed it, having _some food wouldn’t be terrible either, right dad?_

Eli clenched his fists and roared against his father,

“Why are you doing this to us?”

The other three all turned to him.

“Are we gonna die because you’re scared of humans?” He continued, stepping closer. Jack lowered his eye to the ground and that _was it_. That was the last straw for the twin. He stomped a foot, enraged, shouting words at the top of his lungs.

_You coward!_

_What’s wrong with_ _you?_

_Do you even know how much we hurt because of you?_

Jack kept his face away from his son’s eyes, ashamed of what he had become. He felt once more the vivid shame of being exposed, just like that woman who loved his mother did years ago. The shame rushed to his cheeks as he gripped to his youngest son, still in his arms. Dave rose his hands to no avail, trying to calm Eli down.

George frowned. The grasp his father was holding him in felt like a scream for help. His brothers were fighting and Dave,

_Dave isn’t feeling well. Dad isn’t feeling well. I don’t feel well._

_Why does Eli have to complicate things?_

_Isn’t it best if we get along?_

The child freed himself from the grasp with a sudden leap, to Jack’s shock. George usually never fought back what he was told to do, but that time, he did. He wanted to protect his father.

_Shut up!_

George exclaimed with all his might.

_Eli, shut up!_

_Why are you like this?_

The little boy was trying to defend a grown man from his own brother.

_This was so embarrassing._

 And yet, Jack didn’t know what to do. He stared at his three children with a pitiful look, unable to make his situation less pathetic, which only made Eli angrier.

_George you gotta open your dumb little eye, he’s letting us rot in this fucking place_

_He wants us dead, that’s what he’s doing_

_We should run away_

In a fit of anger, the youngest pushed his brother down on his butt, yelling a _shut up_. Dave instinctively moved closer to George and held him with an arm. The boy started crying out loud,

_You don’t know anything!_

_Stop being mean to him!_

Eli punched the ground, glaring at his father. _What_ do _we know, George?_ He thought. _Nothing. We know nothing._ The blond boy stood up again, fists closed, shaking.

He didn’t add anything else. His teeth showing in frustration.

Growls, coming from the boy.

Jack’s eye widened in fear. _No,_

Eli shapeshifted into his bear form and ran away in the woods.

_No, don’t be like me,_

David turned to his father, as he was still holding a sobbing George.

_Don’t become like Ishmael._

His voice filled Jack’s ears but he didn’t hear it, he just kept staring to where his son had just disappeared; that growl, that was _his doing_. He never wanted his boys to be animals.

_He never wanted this._

“Stay.” Jack whispered, placing a hand on Dave’s shoulder as he stood up.

George whimpered a _no, daddy don’t go_ while reaching out his arms. Jack shapeshifted and let the boy hug his muzzle to reassure him. His older brother petted the fur on his head, leaning on him before his legs gave in, forcing him sat down on the ground because of fatigue. Jack pushed George closer to his brother before gently brushing his nose on David’s cheeks.

“Don’t worry dad, we will stay here.”

Jack left the two with fear in his heart. He was alone in the forest, his children defenceless. Separated. He started sniffing the air to catch Eli’s scent and followed the tracks. Somehow, it seemed like Eli didn’t really try to hide where he was going and didn’t want to run too far, either.

The tracks ended on one big tree to which Jack sniffed the bark and looked up. His son was on one of the branches, he had taught them that was the safest place to be when they were alone.

 _Go away_ was the only thing Eli said, arms crossed while looking at the horizon.

“I don’t want to look at you.” Jack lifted his big body on his back paws and leaned onto the tree, growling softly. “Stop it!” Eli ended up looking straight at his father’s muzzle, while gazing down. Jack turned into his human form again, arms reaching above his head, towards the branch his son was sitting on. He looked so desperate for forgiveness. _I am sorry, don’t hate me. Please. You’re all I have._

Eli frowned at that sight. He frowned to hold back his own tears.

“Why don’t you talk to us anymore?” The boy held himself on a closer branch. “What’s happening to you?” His voice was shaky and impatient.

“Tell me!” He demanded.

Jack lowered his arms and rested his forehead onto the trunk of the tree. His eye was fixed to the grass, sprouting at the base of the tree. Grass didn’t have problems. Grass would freely grow wherever, whenever. There is nothing wrong with it until you pick it up, put it in a jar and let it live in darkness. It withers and dies. If it survives, may it be for sheer luck or an immense willpower, and it is placed back into the kind soil where it belongs, there is poison in its leaves; sick roots, a fading colour.

It will never grow back as it used to. It would linger this earth as if a part of it was missing.

Jack seemed like a child, lost. He _knew_ what was happening to him. He was tired and he felt _sick_. Everything was starting to slip from his hands; opening and closing his palms to keep a sense of reality wasn’t helping anymore. His memories, his mind, they were starting to wither like the grass. _There will be a day_ , he had begun to think, _there will be a day where I will not recognise my children. What will I do, then? Who will I be?_

_Will I be Ishmael, roaming the woods like any other bear, without any sense of self?_

_Will I be Big Boss, killing mercilessly the people I love?_

_Will I still be Jack,_

_Jack,_

_The boy who is stuck in time, more than ten years ago? The boy who is alone?_

_Who really is Jack anymore?_

And he understood he wouldn’t be able to tend to his children without killing himself in the process. Or letting them die.

_Eli was right._

“Dad?” His son’s voice reached him, still angered but with a hint of worry.

“I” Jack initiated what seemed a long sentence he had to ponder over. His eye now looking at the child on the branch, his brows in a concerned frown, “I will” he stuttered, punching in anger the tree. Words didn’t want to come out from his mouth the right way, he didn’t sound human.

He sounded like a disgusting creature, a monster.

“I will try my best.” Jack finally exclaimed out of frustration, grunting afterwards because that was just _the beginning_ of what he wanted to say, and yet, he already felt as if he had spoken for an hour.

His thoughts were rushing in and his mouth was too slow for them all. He wanted to tell his son, _he wanted to tell his son_ how dear he and his brothers were to him. He wanted to tell his son that he didn’t want them to die, he will not allow them to die. He wanted to tell Eli how he was proud of him, how amazing he was, not even eleven and he could already survive on his own. What a masterpiece they all were and how he wanted to change, he wanted to become a good father for them.

But the reality of things wasn’t kind to him, as grammar and words were melting in his mouth. “I”, he passed a hand on his face, almost agonizing because of this brain, this rotting meat inside his head, “I am sorry”

He gazed back up

“Eli.”

Eli started to crawl down as Jack kept going. He was speaking so much for his usual standards nowadays. “It hurts to speak” the boy reached the ground, now looking at his father’s face.

“I am” he paused “I am scared” Eli kept staring with a neutral face as his father struggled. “I am scared I w-won’t” another pause to regroup his sentence, “be able to talk to you” he closed his eye, “anymore”.

Eli didn’t consider this amends for his behaviour, but he saw Jack’s will to apologise. Maybe he had understood he needed help, real help. Help the three children could not provide anytime soon. Stability, security, somewhere safe where the man could sleep and rest without worrying.

Eli reached out for his father’s hand and grasped it firmly.

“From now on, when we say we need to go to town, we _are_ going.” He stated, no room for rejection. Jack obliged with a nod and grunted, as he reached out his own hand and pinched his son’s cheek in a very serious gesture. Eli just frowned a little,

“Don’t become like me.” He told his son in a moment of lucidity.

Eli gave him a puzzled look. He didn’t quite get what his father meant as they started walking back to the other two.

They went to town that night.

\--

The same night, from the look of the nearby city they had understood it was New Year ’s Eve. People rushing to see fireworks, busy streets, humans and shapeshifters laughing and enjoying a walk in the crispy air of the early winter.

Dave had managed to get warm food from the volunteers at the homeless and poor service place; Jack was holding George for his dear life, as the boy in his arms was rather calm, pointing at the funny Christmas lights he was seeing in his surroundings. George couldn’t make them out well, but was having a good time describing them to his dad. Maybe it will calm him down, he thought.

Jack remembered he loved Christmas, as a child. He remembered someone like Santa Claus. Right now though, standing in the cold, lining up with humans, as his twins were ready to accept any kind of warm food, made him insufferably scared.

He kept looking behind himself as a tall, old man with a scar on his left eye stared at him. The man smiled kindly at George, as the boy begun asking him questions; this made Jack even more nervous, staring at the stranger with an angered look.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m George. He is my dad and they are my brothers, Eli and David!” The boy looked enthralled at the idea of talking with other people, his smile was bright.

“What a coincidence, my name is also David.”

The twins had moved back, closer to their father to check on him and overheard the conversation. The old man shook George’s hand in a playful way. Jack didn’t like that. _At all._

He grunted and stepped back until he hit another person on the front. It was a small _watch out!_ said with an annoyed tone, but the bear man was starting to feel threatened, his breathing becoming heavy as everyone’s eyes felt like needles in his skin. George was protesting, _you’re hurting me dad_ , Dave was holding out his hands, telling him to calm down, everything will be fine. _You will be fine._ It echoed in his head as he focused on Eli’s disappointed face.

The old man apologised profusely, explaining in a distinct London accent he didn’t mean to upset him. Jack heard the voices of people, as if they were shouting at him. In reality, the line was quiet, just some women were looking worriedly at the scene; George, out of options, put his hands on his father’s ears and pressed his forehead on the man’s.

Dave gave a sigh of relief as the man seemed to relax a little. Jack loosened his stance even though George was still covering his father’s ears.

“I apologise, sir.” Dave told the old stranger. “He is” a little pause, “not used to being around people.”

“It is quite alright, boy. It wasn’t my intention to upset your father like that.” He shuffled the cane he was holding from a hand to another. Jack had exited the line. Exhausted, he had sat down on the pavement in front of the mess hall. George cuddled him while resting in his lap.

Eli rolled his eyes, even with this mess they didn’t flee. That was a good start.

“Well, at least we’re gonna get some food tonight, it seems.”, he stated, looking to the back of the person standing in front of them, pushing his hands inside the pockets of his dirty jacket and arching his shoulders for warmth. Dave still didn’t feel well, he had eaten raw meat earlier to keep himself up, but he ended up leaning onto his brother’s shoulder. His head was heavy, resting on Eli’s side.

“You alright?”

Dave moved a hand in a slow, circular motion. He meant _so-so_. He was tired and hungry, mostly.

“Boys” the old man patted Eli’s back with his cane, “you can go sit with your father if you’re tired. I will bring you the food.” He had a hint of a smile and pointed at Jack, who had calmed down and was staring directly back at them.

“How can we trust you?” Eli retorted as Dave grimaced at him. _Come on_ , he whispered to his brother, annoyed.

_Do you trust everyone that speaks to you?_

_No, of course not!_

_Then what? Are you going to trust this old guy here? He’ll fuck us up and then leave with our food._

_Stop being an ass, he seems nice._

_Yeah, starting the new year with a middle finger is the best way, right Dave._

Dave elbowed his twin and turned to the man, “Thank you, sir. We will be waiting out here, the line seems to be moving smoothly. What is your name, again?”

The boy tried to smile back, but it looked like an irritated expression.

“It’s my pleasure, after all, I did make a mess earlier.” He bowed his head a little, “My name is David, but you can call me Major Zero.”

The twins turned their head and asked, in unison,

“What?”

The _Major_ chuckled. “I was in the army once, they would call me that, but, ah” he moved his hand in a disregarding gesture, “Call me whatever you want. Now go, I will get right back at you boys when I have your rations.”

Dave thanked the man, even though the puzzled look still lingered on his face. He took his brother’s hand and pulled him away from the line.

“See us whining for hunger in three, two, one—“ Eli scoffed, as they walked closer to their father.

“Shut up for once.”

Jack watched the twins moving from the line to where he was sitting. He felt ashamed, again. The people walking by weren’t even looking at him and yet, he had felt their piercing eyes, ready to snatch him away and put him in a cage. This time, forever.

“I, I” a hard start, since he was tired and still shaken up from earlier, “I’m sorry. I didn’t—” Dave patted his father’s head, lovingly but equally tired.

“It’s okay, dad.”

Dave rarely smiled. He could fake smiles just fine, but he would rarely bright up his face with a heartfelt one. That night though, the look he gave his father was genuine.

“Did you get dinner?” George emerged from Jack’s warm hug, excitedly looking at Eli who had sat down near the man. “No kid, we didn’t.” Eli put on a mocking tone, “Dave decided he wanted to trust the old man behind us, so we’re here.”

Jack frowned and shifted his head from twin to twin, giving out an annoyed puff of air from his nose.

“His name is David.” George said as if he was asserting some important news, even though the boy seemed busier petting Jack’s beard.

“We know, he told us he was in the army or some crap like that.” Eli crossed his arms behind his head and laid down on the pavement. Jack glanced at him and adjusted the collar of his son’s jacket, since it had bent on the side when the boy moved down on the ground.

Eli closed his eyes, the cold covering his face suddenly gave in to the warmth of his father’s big, rough hand as the man stroked his cheek. It was just a moment, but it felt so nice. It made Eli feel like a child again, coddled by his dad. His eyes slowly opened on the view of his father’s imposing back. George and Dave were talking about Christmas, about the lights and the atmosphere. They were distracting Jack from the inevitable presence of people. The two brothers were making up stories about some of the passersby women and men, _look at that funny hat_ , _that purse must be full of secret letters_.

Eli had a hand an inch away from his father’s back. He had a strong desire to stroke it, a comforting gesture for himself. He felt nostalgic. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to take care of his father anymore but

But he wanted to be taken care of, too. He was a child afterall, and he was needy for his rightful parental reassurance. He wanted to feel safe in his father’s arms. He envied David, who seemed so detached and cold, apparently strong enough to be the support of their father. He was jealous of George, who could still feel that protective vibe emanating from this no so tall, but definitely big bear of a man that was their dad.

Eli dropped his hand on the cold ground.

The Major came soon after, handing out the food to that odd family sitting on the pavement. Dave accepted the rations, thanking the old man.

“I am very sorry for having upset you earlier.” He took a step away from Jack, fearing another panic attack. Jack moved his head forward, as if he was smelling the air. He shook his head and patted his chest.

“He’s saying he is sorry.” David translated, as he was so ready to eat that delicious, warm meal.

“Well, enjoy your dinner tonight. Happy new year.”

The Major smiled politely, waving to George especially, who kept moving his hand for a while even after the man had turned his back and limped away, leaning on his cane.

The family stood up, the little boy holding his dad’s hand, the twins walking in front of them, excited about the food, Dave remarking how Eli was wrong about the Major.

On the other side of the street, an old woman was smoking a cigarette while looking out of the window at the second floor, her flat, right above her own little shop. She had just finished eating dinner with a couple of friends and was enjoying a moment to herself. She was beautiful, even late in her 60s.

“Eva, get here already! How long does a cigarette take you?”

The voice came from behind her as she looked at the strange family passing nearby. She had seen the brown haired kid somewhere, she was sure of it.

“Don’t rush me, I’m enjoying my time. Besides, doesn’t Kaz need help in the kitchen to clean up?” a muffled _I do_ came from even further in the flat.

The boy. Right, he got some things from her rubbish the other week. She exhaled the smoke from her nose, pressing the cigarette in the hash tray, closing the window.

\--

George was snoring a little, huddled up close to David, fast asleep after eating two rations – they found out there was a surplus of rations and they all agreed to give it to him. Under tons of raggedy sheets, the two brothers were having a peaceful slumber. Jack was lying on his side with his share of sheets, near the entrance of the cave, his back to the dying fire still crackling.

The night sky became a playground for fireworks when, he guessed, midnight stroke. Another year had passed. When the children were small, he had found magazines from which he learnt he had lost, at the time, ten years to captivity.

The fireworks were pretty, colourful, distant. They were so distant the noise was barely audible, but the sky was filled with them nonetheless. Jack heard shuffling behind himself. Eli appeared from the shadows and overstepped him, sitting in front of the man's chest.

“Happy new year, dad.”

He tried to keep a cool and neutral tone, even though the silhouette lighted up by the moon appeared troubled by something. Jack reached out a hand and stoked the boy’s cold cheek. Eli turned to look at his father, who was pulling at his arm as if he was asking him to come down and get under the sheets for shelter.

Eli was tired. Too tired to put up a fight. He moved in his father’s arms, in a warm embrace. Again, he felt nostalgic.

“It would be nice to see the fireworks up close.” He whispered, hiding his head under Jack’s chin. The man held the boy closer, brushing his hair with a hand. Silence filled the cave they inhabited, like a calm blanket, inviting a good night of rest.

After five minutes, Jack replied to his son. No stutterring, no pauses.

“Next year. I will show you fireworks.”

For a moment, just a brief moment, Eli thought he was four again. His dad’s deep, cosy voice rising over the silence of his existence to comfort him. Telling him that things will be better. The future was going to be better.

The boy hid his face as he sobbed softly, holding onto his father’s jacket. Jack held his weeping son, he held him close, he held him till the fire died out and the fireworks stopped.

“I love you, dad.”

\--

He thought he could change, he thought everything could go well, at last. Finally he was ready to meet humans just for his children’s sake. Only for them. And yet he couldn’t stop his paranoia from getting the best of him, leading him to extremes.

One such extreme was pushing his shapeshifting too far. He would stay days without going back to his human form, as if he was getting prepared for the worst.

As if he was making preparations for war.

A raging war inside his head, factions yelling to one another. A battle going on for years and it was coming to a close. His fear of humans on a side, his fear of losing himself on the other. There was no one to console his mind but his bear form. Ishmael was strong and knew how to defend himself, how to kill. He felt safe. He was able to protect his children like this.

Jack’s body fell hard on the ground. Everything was shaking; his whole being was hurting as if spears were tearing his muscles apart, his heart ripped away from his chest. His breathing was irregular, shaky, cut short. The children were shouting at him. _Dad! Dad!_

His bear form was unsightly; it looked as if it was melting away. There was panic in the three boys’ faces, George was literally screaming his lungs away, holding onto a body that was barely holding itself together.

His human form emerged from that ugly mess, sweating and grasping for air. Eli held George away from their father, who turned instinctively on his side to throw up whatever he had in his stomach.

As the man’s shivers seemed to calm down, Dave got closer and touched his forehead. He was hotter than hell itself.

“He-- he overdid himself, didn’t he?” Eli asked his brother, whose reply was just a sigh with a tearful expression. Dave shook his head and regained his cool, patting his father’s cheeks, calling him.

“Dad! Dad, wake up! We’ll take you to the cave!” he told his father, gesturing to Eli to start pulling to one of his arms. George was petrified, even though he didn’t see his father’s body melt, spared by his bad eyesight. He moved closer to the body, shaking the man, his sobs echoing in the forest.

Jack opened his eye. Voices were slowed down, almost eerie; his vision was blurry. His brain was boiling. He saw one of his boys in tears, another one was telling him to go. The man pushed his weight on his hands as he moved on all fours. He fell down again.

The twins helped him by placing themselves under his arms.

His skin was the white of a corpse's.

They managed to make their father move, foot after foot, while George tried to hold him from behind, to avoid a bad fall upwards. “We’re back,” Eli said, trying to sound as if everything was alright, “Now you’ll get some rest.”

They made him lay down and removed his boots, unfastened his belt and placed sheets over him. George took some water they had left and gave it to David; his older brother tore a piece of cloth from one of the sheets to wet it and place it on their father’s forehead. Next, he made Jack drink the rest of it.

“Dave.” Eli looked at his twin, hoping for some kind of reaction.

“Is dad going to die?” George asked as he dried his tears and held a piece of the sheets covering Jack.

Dave was staring down.

Cold sweat was dripping from the side of his head as he had reached his breaking point. He clutched his fists and made a muffled sound, like a scream, before punching the ground. George jolted back, ending up sitting on his butt, confused. Eli’s expression was of pure shock; he never believed his brother would snap. He had thought about it, of course, but David always seemed so in control and serious, almost snarky at times. Picturing him losing it was almost impossible.

Dave breathed in a mouthful, glaring at his brother with eyes full of tears.

“We are going to search help.”


	7. Human Qualities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter's title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqChTn4PNuA
> 
> Thanks to Cat for beta-ing this chapter!

“This is unlike you.” George whined, holding Eli’s hand as they scavenged across the forest, searching for someone, anyone. The cold breeze of late January silenced all sounds, even with the sun shining bright in the blue sky above the three brothers.

“You know he’s not going to react well when he wakes up.” Eli resumed the complaint, pausing just to put his little brother up on his back so he didn’t have to worry about him stumbling around. Yet another idea coming from his twin he didn’t agree with; except, this time, David looked agitated, almost in a hurry. The boy had ordered his brothers to follow him in his search for help, may they be shapeshifters or humans. It didn’t matter.

He had decided to leave his father behind.

It _was_ unlike him, indeed.

Dave was ignoring them, taking rough steps in front of himself and angrily shuffling leaves away from his path. He kept touching his right temple in a spasmodic way while looking forward, his hand trembling a bit. Eli didn’t like that one bit. The sight of his father literally melting in front of their eyes really did a number on his brother.

“Dave.” He called for him, “Dave!” again, with a peremptory tone. David didn’t even halt his march as the sound of his brother’s voice reached him. He shapeshifted into his cub form, sniffing the air. Eli had a bad feeling.

 _Eli, is dad going to die?_ The youngest asked, squeezing his brother’s shoulders.

_Maybe._

The child mustered all his strength not to cry again at that response. Eli was moving at a fast pace, following Dave’s bear noise. George whispered, in a defeated voice.

_I’m sorry I can’t do anything._

Dave was too busy following the track he had found to care. There was a smell of meat in the air, away from the path to town. Somebody was cooking outside, he guessed. He moved forward.

His head was hurting so badly.

He wanted to scream, but kept it silent. He kept it in.

“Christ, Dave wait for us!” Eli shouted from behind. The cub stood on two feet, before turning back into a human and finally facing his brothers, as Eli caught up with him. Dave’s eyes were swollen. He looked like he had been crying, even though he hadn’t shed one tear since they left the cave. Everything about him felt uneasy.

“Someone is cooking.” He said with no emotion whatsoever.

George asked to get down and Eli knelt a little to let the boy stand again. He ran to David, almost falling once (from which Eli had already moved aside to avoid the worst), hugging his waist as if he had reached a safe zone again.

“I can smell it.” He said. “My,” he looked at his brother’s strained face, “my nose is good!”

George seemed anxious, for once in his life he felt like Dave didn’t care. About anything. The young boy was trying his best to impress him, to shake him out from his numbness.

“I can’t see well but you know I can smell!”

“George—“ Eli sighed, passing a hand through his hair while the child kept going.

“No, no! I can do it! I can track it down!” he moved away from David, who followed him with a tired gaze. George shapeshifted; it was rare for him to do so, actually, even though his vision was slightly better as a cub. He started moving his nose in the air and picked up the appealing smell of meat, pork. Moving his little, unsure paws outside of the path they knew, he sniffed the ground too and almost disappeared in the vegetation.

“Aren’t you going to stop him?” Eli exclaimed in an exasperated tone.

Dave shifted his look to the other’s face. No emotion showing.

And this,

this made Eli _livid_. It was like looking at their father. An exact copy, except in a smaller format. Eli growled, displeased and glared at his brother before running after George.

_Dave was alone._

Shivers shook his whole body, his guts twisting in his stomach. The image of his father’s body, inhuman, blinded his eyes. The heavy breathing of the man as he grasped for air, the depiction of such an endless exhaustion on his face as he suffered under those messy, dirty sheets.

The image of his father dying.

David took his hands to cover his mouth. He screamed.

\--

George pointed to the quaint, isolated house built close to a clay pit, which ultimately lead to the main road to the nearest town. They could see a side of it. A henhouse hosted four chickens and a rooster, enclosed in a ring of metal used as a fence. A white horse was grazing around the area; a small stable clearly indicated the animal was part of the household.

“They’re the _cookings_.”

“it’s _cooks_.” Eli playfully pressed his hand on George’s head as he crouched down next to him to understand the situation better. “We’ve got to look around the place to figure out who these people are.”

George looked at his brother with a firm look. “There is a dog, too.”

“You _do_ have a good nose.” Eli smirked, somehow comforted by his younger brother’s heartfelt giggle. They both heard rustling coming from behind and Dave’s face popped out from the evergreen trees. He looked worse than before.

He glanced at the house, the smell of cooking and farm animals were mixing in his nose; he started walking straight to the house, Eli’s eyes widened as he snapped forward and caught his brother’s arm, turning him around.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” he growled at David’s face. He looked like a lifeless doll, shaking his twin off. He resumed his walk towards the house while Eli, enraged, picked up a rock from the ground and threw it to him, missing.

He hissed under his breath _do whatever you want, do whatever you want, everyone does whatever they want anyway_.

George ran past Eli, trying to catch up with his other brother. The blond child hissed in a muffled tone “George! Don’t go!”, he stomped his foot, “Goddammit!”

Dave was close, so close that one of the chickens was staring right at him. He crouched down near a corner of the house. “Da-Dave!” George came upon him, almost falling over his older brother. He was quickly shushed with a gesture.

The small boy knelt down just the same, with an ashamed expression as he whispered an apology. Dave shifted his eyes to him and felt bad. He grasped George’s hand and held it firmly. George reached out with his free hand and grabbed a piece of his brother’s jacket in a worried gesture.

They moved, sneaking around the wall until he heard voices and a distinct sound of crackling meat on a grill. A man, he wasn’t sure how old he was, with long, pale blond hair tightly fastened in a low ponytail and a pair of aviators was cooking sausages and whatnot. He was wearing a big, brown leather jacket and dark comfortable looking pants. He was distinctively leaning over a crutch, holding himself with his left arm, as he turned the meat with the other. A male voice with an odd accent came from the house.

“How many left?”

The man turned to the door from which, supposedly, the voice had come from and lifted his index. “Only one. Are you hungry?” he chuckled.

Footsteps slowly walked down from the three steps that separated the ground from the backdoor and a tall, silver haired man appeared in the scene. The length of his hair went far beyond his shoulders, neatly tied at the bottom with a red string arranged into a bow. His moustache was funny looking, David thought. The man seemed older, but sported a more refined look than the other one.

“Not particularly, but DD is trying to eat what you’ve already cooked.” The lanky man walked closer and folded his arms in a rather dramatic way. “I had to close him in the bedroom, so he’s been crying for at least fifteen minutes non-stop.”

They kept chatting but Dave’s focus failed to keep track of it, his head slowly bobbing downwards. _What should he do? How should he approach them?_

He was scared. He understood his father now, in a way. Even though he had talked to humans before, this was different. These people could turn to them and kill them; there would be no witness, no help, nobody.

And then, a noise of steps walking past them. George's loud gasp made Dave get back to reality. Eli was walking boldly straight to the men’s field of vision.

“Hey.” The boy tried to catch their attention.

The man with the aviators frowned in confusion and moved his spatula towards the boy in a small gesture, making the taller man turn just the same, except he raised his eyebrows, making a rather surprised look.

“Ah, hello.” The seemingly older one greeted Eli.

“What are you doing alone ‘round here, kid?” the other asked, getting an annoyed look from his partner.

“I’m not alone.”

Eli glanced at his brothers, hidden behind the wall. Dave had an outraged look on his face as he pushed George behind himself.

“We’re searching for help.” The boy went back to staring at the old men. The nicer one, or at least he thought was nicer, moved a few steps forward and Eli quickly removed himself from his path, his guard up. The man discovered the other two boys and let out a surprised sound.

“Hello to you two, too.” He hinted a smile. George pushed himself away from Dave and fell on the ground, looking up. The image was extremely blurry to him, he could only see various colours, mostly grey and reds and no distinct shape. From the ground, he shouted – more than asked –

“Can you help us?”

Eli kept staring at the aviators man as he turned off the grill and limped around it. They didn’t look particularly threatening, in any way you looked at them. They were just, old men.

He spoke huskily. “What’s the deal here?”

“Kaz, quit it.”

“I’m just asking.”

Dave wasn’t sure how to feel about this. At all. He unsteadily stood up and looked at the man in front of them. George was trying to get up, but he stopped to look at his own dirty and scraped hands. The man got close to him. Dave and Eli both staring at the stranger, ready to jump as soon as something struck them the wrong way. He helped George up and held him still, taking a look at the child’s hands.

“We’d better clean up this mess, shouldn't we?”

George could make the man’s face out now, since they were in a close proximity. He instinctively reached out a hand to touch his moustache since he was so used to doing so with his father, his face a mix of awe and confusion. The man softly laughed, turning to David.

“You boys must be hungry.”

George mumbled a _yes_ , his hand still touching the man’s moustache. His companion on the other side sighed and removed his aviators to rub his eyes.

“Okay, _I guess_.” He placed them back on and looked at Eli. “What’s your name, rascal?”

“Eli. The little one is George. And—“

Dave cut his brother, stepping in to look at the man with the sunglasses.

“I’m David. Nice to meet you.” His politeness seemed so out of place on his messed up face.

“My name’s Adam and he is my husband Kazuhira. You can call him Kaz, but he doesn’t always reply.” He shrugged playfully as he picked George up and walked back to the _less nice_ man, who just scoffed.

The children were captivated by the two, in a very dangerous naïveté. The twins were so, so tired. They dropped their extremely wary defence, now just mildly uncomfortable around these strangers.

“Ok kids, since this guy here invited you to our lunch, we might as well eat.”

Kaz walked back in, after retrieving a plate with the remaining meat on top, welcoming the children with a gesture of his cane.

Adam looked at the twins and sighed, “I’m sorry he’s like this, don’t get scared. He’s all talk.”

George was staring at the man holding him while they moved inside. He had never been held by anyone but his father, it felt inexplicably cosy. _Grandpa Adam smells good_ , he thought, not knowing how to address this old man otherwise than, indeed, grandpa.

The twins were carefully scanning their surroundings as they entered the house, but everything was just

_So nice._

It was clean, and smelled good. A dog was whining behind a door, the TV in what they thought was the kitchen was quietly playing an old cowboy movie. Inside, it was warm and relaxing. The appetising aroma of seasoned food filled the room. Adam gently pushed David’s back.

“You two go wash your hands.” He said as he placed George on a chair in the kitchen, leaving the room. Kaz was putting down plates on the small table, counting how many they had and wondering why they didn’t go to the dining room. The twins stared at him even as they were near the sink, sharing a somehow amused look at this man talking to himself. Clean hands felt nice. At least, clean hands with soap. Kaz invited them to sit down.

Adam came back with a medical kit, lifted George back up – he had just been staring around, though he couldn’t make out much- and held him over the sink so he could clean his hands too. Yet he quickly learnt how the little boy could see hardly anything and the eyepatch he was wearing was an alarming sign of that. The child sat on the sink, while the old man applied disinfectant on his hands, causing him to whine a little from the burning sensation.

When Adam put him back on his chair, there were plasters on the inside of his hands. He carefully looked at them all and noticed they had an amusing pattern of squiggly, colourful lines. He smiled and tried to show them off to his brothers, who were too busy having their own personal struggles with the situation.

Eli kept his mistrusting look, even as Kaz served grilled meat and tomatoes in every plate. The table was nicely prepared; they had put down glasses and forks. Bread was warm and ready.

George tried to eat with his hands, as they were used to, since they rarely used utensils anyway. Eli just tried to stab the food with a knife.

The voices of the two old men were a background in Dave’s mind, while George was telling them he had never tasted something this good. Eli had already started to bicker with one of the two – Kaz – over of his poor table manners. Dave sat there, staring at his plate of food

_And in his heart_

_He wanted this._

_He wanted this for his father._

\--

_It’s so cold, I’m shivering. I’m dying._

_My body can’t keep itself together. I look at my hands and they’re bones, flesh dripping from it like water drops. Every falling piece makes a loud sound in the snow, as if it was falling on hard metal._

_My brain is boiling, I feel like it’s turning inside out and devouring my everything. I can’t recollect anything from my life._

_Who are these children? Why are they here?_

_Why is there a bear here? What is it? How did it get here?_

_Who am I?_

_Who am I?_

_Who am I?_

_There is a woman in the distance, in the snow. I am a skull, I am a skeleton, I am death. I move towards her. All around her presence white flowers bloom and it’s warm, and nice, and a dream._

_Who are you?_

_She asks._

_Who are you?_

_Who are you?_

_I cry as she is so familiar, as she is everything I’ve been longing for. Her face is blurred but her voice is clear._

_Jack, I love you._

_Jack,_

_Jack, I love you._

_I hug her._

_I love you, mum._

_I hold her close to me and she pets my hair. I am human again. I am whole again. Everything is good. Everything is good. I open my eyes, I am holding my children, my beautiful children._

_They are smiling, they are happy._

_I am Jack._

_I love you, dad. I love you, dad. I love you, dad._

_I am Jack._

_I wake up._

\--

Jack was shaken awake by his own shivering; he remembered leaving the cave in the morning with his children and then there was a blackout in his memories. He kept trembling under the sheets, and they weren’t of any help. He felt a deep cold inside. A high fever wrapped his body into numbness.

Turning around made him want to throw up, but he tried to stand on all fours, still in the dizzy confusion of his wake. Outside, the light was already in the deep late afternoon. _How long had he been out?_ Jack held himself up by walking side by side with the wall. He still had a sheet on himself, keeping it close with his free hand.

No sign of his kids. He sniffed around and couldn’t catch any new trace of their scent.

His fever overcame the inevitable paranoia and he decided to sit down and wait. Maybe they just went to gather food. Maybe they went to the river.

_Maybe._

\--

The clock rang three o’clock and David had fallen asleep on the armchair of the living room. He was sleeping soundly even if he had strenuously fought the tiredness. After they had finished eating , Adam told them they could watch TV while the two men cleaned the table and washed the dishes, so Eli decided it was alright to let his twin sleep for a while. He was lying on the sofa, with George resting on his chest. His baby brother was drooling a bit on his shirt but that was the least of his problems.

In the kitchen, the two men were whispering at each other to avoid any eavesdropping.

“Did you see them?” Adam moved a hand towards the living room, “They didn’t even know how to eat at the table. How could we _not_ ask them?”

“Look, Adam, police and social service exist for a reason.” Kaz rubbed some sauce away from a pan, probably thinking of scraping the sponge on his husband’s face.

“Why don’t you care?”

“When did I ever say I don’t care? I just don’t think we should snoop in other people’s lives.”

Adam crossed his arms and leaned on the cupboard, staring at Kaz, who turned his head on the side to meet the other’s eyes.

“What?”

“I am not letting them go back without us accompanying them.” At that point, Kaz made the most annoyed sigh while looking to the ceiling. “What if their father is an abusive asshole? Do you want the kids to go back there on their own?”

Kaz lifted his hand from the sink, while Adam was still explaining all his scheme to either catch the brute and put him in jail, or in a worse scenario, how to take him head on. He pressed his soapy hand on the man’s mouth, greeted with furrowed brows.

“We’ll go. Fine. Just,” he touched the tip of Adam’s long nose with the side of his wet index, “Just be quiet, will you.”

Adam passed a hand over his moustache to put it back in its rightful position, doing exactly as a diligent cat would do.

“I’m going to check on them.” Adam swiftly pressed a kiss on the other man’s cheek, “You’re a good man.”

“To be with you, I’m for sure a _very good_ man.” Kaz chuckled as the other pulled his ponytail en passant before leaving the kitchen.

Eli had nearly dozed off as well, the cosy atmosphere captured him and he felt like all of his tiredness had fallen on him at the same time; or maybe it was George’s plump body on his stomach. He poked the little boy’s cheeks and watched him cover his face with a hand, curling up even more.

He glanced over to the armchair where Dave was all huddled on himself, his face completely overwhelmed by sleep. One could perfectly hear a small snore coming from him.

Adam silently walked closer to the sofa, meeting Eli’s green-ish eyes set in a sleepy frown. “Are you kids ready to go? Do you want to stay a bit more?” The man asked quietly, moving a lock of hair behind an ear. Eli felt a real temptation to stay, but this just wasn’t fair. The other two fell asleep only because of how stressed they were, but they also knew what they were doing wasn’t fair.

“No”, Eli mustered the strength to move himself up a bit, “We’re going.” He shook George, calling his name a couple of times. The boy whined a little before Adam decided to help the older child out by picking up his sleepy brother. _There we go_ , Eli heard him say as he stood up and got closer to his twin. Dave looked so needful of sleep he felt bad. He felt bad for waking him up.

Eli put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and moved him a little, whispering his name. Dave mumbled something and rubbed his right eye. _You look less shitty_ , Eli told him and in response, his twin pushed him away in a playful way.

Eli let out a small laugh.

Dave got up and saw George half asleep on the sofa yet again, apparently Adam had gone to get dressed, and so did Kaz. “Where’s grandpa?” George muttered, before yawning.

“Who’s grandpa?” Eli asked, with a smirk.

“Grandpa Adam.” He stated as he stretched himself in the silliest way, ending up with half of his body out of the couch.

“Grandpa? You already call him that?” Eli poked the centre of his brother’s belly, making him jolt in defence. “Of course. He is old, he is a grandpa.” George said while frowning a little, covering his tummy.

David shrugged as Eli turned his face to him.

“That makes sense, I suppose.”

\--

_Where are they?_

Jack was shaking visibly, his face cut by the cold wind. His eye scanned the surroundings of the cave, pacing back and forth. He shouted.

_David!_

_Eli!_

_George!_

No answer, just some sparrows flying off from a branch, scared by the deep, guttural voice of the man. It was just like the nightmare he had lived in that cage. He remembered the anxious pacing, waiting to see his sons. Waiting to feel something else besides pain.

The doubt. The doubt of what could have happened to them clouded his mind. He tried to shapeshift once, twice. Three times.

Nothing happened.

Sweat was dripping from his forehead. He gritted his teeth and tried with all his might but his body would heated up forcing him to fall on his knees, every time more exhausted. Every time he felt a bit of himself leaving his body.

Every time he felt the embrace of death closer. It was just as he had predicted. Self-destruction.

_Where are they?_

He shouted his children’s names again.

No answer.

He collapsed onto the ground; his eye could barely keep itself open. He was panting, curled up in the dead grass and snow. Numb again.

_Where are they?_

He whispered his sons names once again, his body still, at the mercy of the weather.

_I am sorry._

_I am, so_

_So sorry._

Five, ten, twenty minutes passed and he had almost lost consciousness, slipping away. Fading. He thought it was better this way, his delusions coming to a close.

Then, he suddenly heard shuffling in forest, voices. His children. A twitch in his hand gave him the cue to move, slowly, back on his fours. Everything felt heavy as if it was made of lead. His vision was blurred out and he could barely stand on two legs. He stumbled on his feet to keep balance when he rose again, the voices getting closer.

David emerged from the trees, his son moved an arm up to signal they were back. Jack couldn’t hear anything besides his own desperate panting. Eli, side by side with his twin, turned his back. He seemed to be talking with someone else.

And then two men. _Humans_. One of them was holding George.

He didn’t hear what the twins told him, he just saw the hands on his child. Their hands touching him, the way the two humans were _so_ close to the twins. He saw the guards, he heard the screams in his head. _Be a good boy_. _Be a good boy_. They came to take him back, they came to force him into a cage; they had finally come to take his sons away and leave him to die in the darkness. They would make him kill his sons.

Fury pervaded him. A fury he had known but never exposed to the eyes of his children. It was the pure rage of a killer; it was Ishmael’s anger, it was Big Boss’s revenge. It was Jack’s desperation.

He charged towards the two men, screaming like an animal, like a beast. Like a monster.

_Self-destruction._

One of the men fell on his back, as he was trying to step away, scared by the sudden threat. His crutch didn’t support his spasmodic movement out of fear and gave in. The other promptly placed himself in front of his companion, somehow wanting to shield him.

The twins,

The twins were trying to push their father back. And they were yelling, and George was in the arms of that stranger who was looking at the scene, trying to put the pieces together. The boy shouted in fear,

_Daddy, you’re scaring me_

Jack tried again to shapeshift, pushing against his sons, roaring. His body was once more victim of that exhaustion that made him fall ill. David stared with wide eyes at his father’s distorted being, not a human, not an animal. That wasn’t his father. That was a mess, that was corruption. It was poison.

He stared, his body twitching in disgust and pain.

Dave began pounding his fists on his father’s chest, shouting over his roars

_Stop it_

_Stop it_

_STOP IT_

_YOU NEED HELP_

The boy’s voice was hysterical. Jack heard the screaming clear, it pierced his ears. David had fallen on his knees and he was sobbing so loudly,

 _We need help_ , he kept shouting in between hiccups

 _I need help_ , he whispered.

David covered his face with his hands, desperate. He thought he could fix this. He thought he could fix everything if he tried to look at it logically, trying to find a solution. But he was just ten years old. He was still a child. Eli quickly reached for his twin, crouching down near him. He held his brother and looked up to his father’s wheezing face, his eyes wide in fear as he asked

_Who are you?_

Jack stepped back, as if something had suddenly broken in him. His mother’s voice from his dream echoed all around,

_Who are you?_

_Who are you?_

His head was pounding as sounds and pictures went back in focus. _What have I done?_ He brought his hands to his temples, shaking his head. His eye frantically moving from the twins to George’s face, twisted in horror as he held onto the old man carrying him. The human had squatted down, taking a look to his companion, who was also paralysed in fear.

Jack’s legs gave in to his weight and he fell to his knees, staring at the twins. He plodded over the boys. Eli was piercing him with his eyes. He reached out a trembling hand,

He realised,

He realised he had ruined his children.

_I am not a good father,_

_I am not a good person anymore._

He didn’t do them any good. He had trapped them in a different kind of cage and weighted them down with his own presence. He wanted to make them feel safe when, in reality, _they_ made him feel safe.

His tears ran undisturbed down his cheeks. He whimpered. What a pathetic excuse of a creature he had become. David rose his head, and the face he gave his father broke his heart even more.  

David was having the same emotional troubles he had.

Eli was showing a more animalistic behaviour, just like him.

Jack touched the boy’s cheek with his trembling hand and murmured under his breath,

_What have I done to you?_

“Let” David moved his own shaky hands to cup his father’s face, almost mirroring his gesture, “Let them help you. Dad,” even though he was wearing a distressed expression, the boy still managed to sound reassuring, “Dad,”

David squeezed the man’s face,

“Please.”

Eli pushed his father’s shoulder, his voice broken by imminent tears he didn’t want to show. He grabbed his jacket, clenching his fist around the fabric.

“You idiot get up and behave. Now.” His tone didn’t match with his extremely upset face.

Jack’s face softened for a moment before going back to his frown. His attention was stolen yet again by that threat, still holding hostage his youngest son. The humans were talking, the one who had fallen back on his feet. George was down, hiding behind them.

“What the _fuck_ just happened?” the man with the crutch whispered to his partner, who had placed a hand on his back to help him stand upright.

“A bad moment.” The other turned towards the weird family reunion, “He’s looking at us.”

Jack growled at that sight. Dave shook the man’s head to make their eyes meet

“ _Don’t_ do that.” He almost ordered his father.

“Finally.” Eli sighed in a dramatic way, side eyeing his twin while he passed a hand over his face to clean the tears away.

George was picked up again, Jack saw it from the corner of his eye.

“I’m going.”

“Adam, no.” The crippled man moved a few steps trying to catch up on the other, “Adam!”

George seemed so confused, or maybe frightened, as Adam approached his father and his brothers. Dave preventively placed an arm on his dad’s chest as if to stop him from jolting on the old man. Eli stood up, sniffing in.

Adam was so close to Jack. _Too close_. The bear man couldn’t help himself from his growling but he didn’t move.

“Do you want to go back with your dad?” The man asked George, who glanced over to his father. He nodded, “B-but I don’t like when you do that”, the boy poorly imitated the noises he had heard earlier to showcase his fear. Jack’s brows raised in a worried expression, letting out an apologetic whine.

Adam put down the child and he walked to his father, David still on the alert; he quickly lost his defensive stance once George was wrapped into one of Jack’s hugs. _You scared me a lot_ , the youngest sibling reprimanded him with a soft voice. _Don’t that again. I don’t like you when you’re scary._

“We’re sorry if Mr. Kaz got hurt. Our dad is sick.” David held onto Jack to help himself get up, “He really doesn’t like humans.” He glanced over to his baby brother, hugging this helpless man as he tried to find a way to apologise to his child.

“It’s okay.” Adam smiled and turned to Kaz, still at a safe distance, “Are you hurt?” he shouted.

“That is _not_ the point!” Kaz replied.

“See? As long as he’s able to complain, there’s nothing to worry about.” He chuckled.

Eli thought this man was either amazing or completely out of his mind for not being at least a bit scared or upset about the whole situation; and what followed next definitely confused him even more.

Adam gave out a hand towards Jack, who was staring directly at him.

“You can stay with us, if you want.”

\--

It wasn’t easy to walk Jack back to the humans’ house. Besides not trusting them in the least, he could barely stay upright, let alone walk. Adam and Kaz had to watch from a safe distance as the twins helped him move step after step, looking at that ghastly figure of a man who had just previously lashed out at them. The boys were suffering from fatigue themselves, George trying to keep his father awake and active by talking to him. It was heart-breaking to witness such a scene and not being able to help, in fear things would degrade once more.

He didn’t seem to lack the energy to growl intensely every time he’d catch the two men staring, though. Kaz pointed out he was not going to sleep until their bedroom door was safely locked.

The odd family had taken all their belongings with them, which didn’t consist of much anyway, a few pans, raggedy clothes, messy sheets. Generally, a garbage pile of sort. Adam was already whispering his plans on what to do with their new guests for the evening, how to handle food and where they could sleep, much to his companion’s exasperation. He didn’t ask for four new people roaming their house, popping up completely out of the blue. Especially since one of them almost tried to kill them. Kaz was indeed worried for the children’s wellbeing, but that man scared him.

Kaz didn’t trust the beast man as much as the beast man didn’t trust Kaz.

By the time they reached the cosy, warm house had Jack collapse on the floor. He did his best to stay focused and help the children escort him but he eventually lost the fight to exhaustion. David pressed a hand on his forehead to feel the burning heat underneath as Adam had rushed close to him, kneeling down near the boy, wanting to free Jack from dirty clothes. They all needed a bath and rest, that was indeed the plan.

Jack growled and had a spasm towards the human, which only made him gasp for more air. Kaz moved a heavy step towards the shapeshifter, shouting a _hey_ , as if that would somehow suppress Jack’s further attacks. He was holding onto such a strenuous hate the children had never really witnessed and they couldn’t understand why,

_Why, dad? Why are you acting like this?_

_He had never told them._

_His silent grief._

Adam, just mildly surprised, turned to David and asked _what is your father’s name?_ probably wanting to connect with the man on a closer level; make him understand nothing bad was going to happen.

There was a moment of silence.

George was sitting on the wooden floor, his small hands on his father’s agonizing face. His eye shifted to Eli. The blond child stood still, wearing a confused expression as he frowned towards David. His twin stared back at him and then confronted Adam once more.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean _you don’t know_?” Kaz questioned him with an annoyed tone, this sounded so farfetched to him it was hysterical.

“We have always” David seemed a bit shaken as he glanced over to his father, “called him _dad_.”

The children somehow looked panicked at this immediate discover of their ignorance on basic things about their parent. They realised they didn’t know anything about him. Anything at all. And even though they understood there was a whole layer of things that were hidden from them, the truth hit them like a rock.

Adam stretched his arms forward, his palms straight. The collective eyes of the room shifted towards him.

“Everybody, hold your horses. You can have your big family get-together _after_ your father is done from being on the verge of death.” He spoke with firm tone. Jack’s sons froze up, finally they were being guided again; finally there was someone telling them what was best to do.

“We will call him _John_ for simplicity’s sake.”

Adam had to explain Kaz why John. _I just like it_ , was the answer.

Jack’s felt his body being dragged, his vision was blurred again. All the voices were far away. _He_ was far away. His consciousness was barely keeping itself together, time skipped in a blink. He didn’t realise he was being stripped naked, but he did feel the clean water on his body, his shivering tamed by the warmth of the drops falling on him. There were flashes of the day they had escaped, how bathing sounded so nice. It was a dream.

Voices, shuffling,

_It’s alright, John,_

_John, you will be fine,_

_Dad, please don’t die,_

_Dad, it’s going to be okay,_

Light flickered, Eli’s face appeared in his field of vision as he was talking to someone, his hands holding some kind of sweater.

Everything felt warm now. Comfortable. He could smell a flowery scent all around himself. Another memory of white flowers being picked up from the grass, his old house. The backyard. The sun. Joy was there.

His body dragged again, a corridor, George was pulling his foot with the help of one of the humans. The light went out. Jack was in a soft darkness he never thought existed anymore. He was in a bed. There was no wind blowing, no screaming, no cold, no awful smell of death to accompany his restless slumber. His eye was closed and all he could perceive were soft-spoken voices from behind the door. An image in his head was suddenly triggered, as if it had been waiting for the right moment to appear in his feverish hallucinations.

He was in his room again, he could remember all of his toys laying around, every single one; what colour his sheets were, what smell the air was filled with. His mother was sitting on the side of his bed, she was reading _The Three Bears_ bedtime story. The dim light of the lamp showed her strong profile as she focused on making all the characters come to life with various voices. She stopped to look at him, a smile forming as she stroked his cheek.

_It’s time to sleep, little cub._

_Finish the story first!_

_I will read you the end when you wake up._

_Will you read it for real?_

_I promise._

Jack fell asleep.

And for the first time in almost twenty years, he slept.

\--

Kaz had called the hospital, they said they would send someone in the morning to check on everybody since the worst for _John_ had passed, it seemed. The man specified that a shapeshifter to be there, a suggestion from Eli.

The children showed Kaz and Adam their cub forms, explaining how their father couldn’t perform his shapeshifting because of how strained he was. But he would, eventually.

That part didn’t sit too well with Kaz’s already worried mind.

What they couldn’t explain was their father’s animalistic behaviour, how he came to hate humans, why he didn’t speak – almost at all.

Kaz interrupted the delving into their family history and suggested the boys to shower. He would head to town to buy some random children’s clothes they could wear instead of the tattered, smelly things they had on.

The boys moved to the bathroom, trying not to think too much about their situation. They were so exhausted by everything. David wanted to sleep for the rest of his life. Eli was okay with just lazily staying still on the couch for a while. And George, well, he wanted to check on his father.

Their worries were smothered by the warmth of the bath they were taking for the first time, after years. They wouldn’t fit in the bathtub anymore, at least not all the three of them together, so Eli decided he’d help George get clean and then David would get his turn in it.

David almost fell asleep while lying in the warm water. George was drying himself and his twin was telling the boy a wild horror story about old men eating young boys. There was a wicked sense of humour in Eli, since he loved seeing his little brother trying his best not to act scared of these blatantly made up tales.

In the meantime, Kaz had huddled up in his jacket and was ready to leave.

“That was awfully kind of you.” Adam zipped his husband’s jacket.

Kaz sighed and clenched his fist around his crutch. “I am still pretty worried about that guy in our guest room, you know? But the kids, man.” He left the sentence hanging, clearing his throat. Just thinking of living like they did made his own life seem pretty stellar in comparison. Children always made him feel conflicted, he didn’t particularly like them but somehow they endeared him, in a way, and these were no exception.

“Everything’s alright with your leg? Did you actually get hurt earlier?”

“No, I would have made you accountable for that otherwise.” Kaz moved closer and kissed Adam on the cheek. “See you in a couple of hours. I’ll message you when I’m heading back home.”

The children took their time getting clean and had made the bathroom a complete mess. Adam showed a small frown when he opened the door and witnessed the cubs actual _wild_ side. He made them wait in the living room, covered in towels, as he tried to bring some order back to the devastated room. David had apologised on their behalf, but they really didn’t know how to behave in a house.

After what seemed like fifty minutes, Adam’s phone went off to a text from his husband. He was coming home. The Russian released the mop he had in his hands to leave the bathroom and tell the children they would soon have new clothes, but he found the twins sleeping on the couch, hugging each other in a rather coincidental affectionate gesture. George was nowhere to be seen.

\--

It was dark in the room and George liked that. Nothing else scared him more than an open area full of threats he couldn’t recognise; but a small, dark room felt alright. His nose and ears were good, he could scan the perimeter and understand there was nothing to be feared.

There was a queen size bed in the room, he felt the hard wooden edge with a hand. His father laid in it, softly snoring his tiredness away under the sheets and the cosy duvet. He got on the bed, from the other side. George wore a towel over his shoulders, like a cape he’d hold close around his body with his left hand. He reached up on the bed and sat close to his dad, caressing his soft beard. It was different; the texture was so silky now that it was clean. Thanks to the dim light coming from the half open door, he could make out his dad’s face, so strangely at peace. So strangely calm. The man didn’t move from his unbroken slumber.

The boy moved his hand on Jack’s right eye. No eyepatch. George let go of his towel and touched his own damaged eye. No eyepatch.

His inquisitive hand went on his father’s chest, removing the sheets to expose a sweater that was probably a size too long for him but also a size too tight. He leaned over and rested his head there, listening to the man’s heartbeat. It was regular, almost quiet.

George’s eyes filled with silent tears.

 _I like you better like this_ , he said, whispering.

He held onto the sweater, hoping he would get a hug, a pat, something. But his father kept on sleeping.

 _Eli said you might die, but I don’t think so._ He hummed, looking at the sleeping bear’s face. _You are so strong, dad. I don’t want you to die._

George let out a couple of coughs, placing himself completely over the man’s chest, his head close where the beating heart was; he covered himself with the sheets once more, hiding in this safe place that was his father. Nothing bad would ever happen, as long as he could stay like that.

_I love you, dad,_

_Please don’t leave me._

George felt his father shift a little on his side, accidentally covering the boy with his arm. He sniffed in, reaching out once more to pat the man’s cheeks. He hid his face under his father’s neck, closing his eyes.

He fell asleep.

\--

Adam had found the boy naked, hidden in his dad’s hug, his hair almost completely dry by the time he was picked up and taken back to the living room. George complained loudly, his brothers already dressed up in lanky sweaters and – finally- fitting trousers and socks.

“What are you whining about?” Eli asked, pinching the child’s cheek, as he sat on the sofa close to him, while the old man tried to put clothes on him.

“I took him from your dad.” George found himself with trousers and socks on so he folded his arms to stop the Russian from putting anything else on him.

Eli let out a snarky laugh, “Don’t be a baby, come on.”

George frowned at him, puffing his cheeks. Adam was tired of the little stunt and just put the shirt on the child, making only the head pass through. “You’re a big boy, so when you’re done being pouty you can wear the sleeves on your own. Right?” he said, standing up, with an Eli chuckling in the background.

In the kitchen, Dave was drinking tea with Kaz. It was a first for him, actually, so the taste was a pleasant but bitter surprise.

“You act much older than you look.” Kaz had made matcha, a Japanese green tea he said helped calming the mind and relax the body, to which David replied with _our dad should drink this every single day, then_.

“I don’t know how people my age act.” He took a sip.

“Can I ask you something?”

David’s eyes shifted to meet the old man’s aviators.

“Where is your mother?”

David didn’t reply, once more letting silence fill the room instead. He sipped again from his cup.

“I don’t know. I have no idea who our mother is.” The green liquid moved slightly, reflecting his blank expression. “Maybe we never had one.”

Kaz removed his glasses and placed them on the table, sighing. The man reached out a hand and patted the boy’s back, suddenly finding his face morphing to complete surprise.

“You grew up pretty well, though.” Dave felt his cheeks flush, not knowing how to deal with external compliments. He just stared down at his tea again, mumbling something Kaz didn’t quite get. He let out a laugh seeing the boy so embarrassed over nothing. If you dug deep down enough, you could still see the innocence of a child, afterall.

“I” Dave frowned and the old man was ready for another tearful confession, “I really like your sunglasses.”

Kaz’s face went from confused to amused. Probably the kid thought he needed to compliment him back or something like that, which Kaz didn’t mind. He smiled at him.

“Do you want to try them on?”

Dave frowned even more and rose his face from his tea cup, his cheeks red.

“Yes, please.”

\--

“What are we going to do?” Kaz heavily sat down on his side of the bed, sighing.

“First of all, they need medical assistance.” Adam replied, turning his head to him. He was lying down, sheets neatly folded up to his chest; some locks of hair falling onto his face. Kaz undid his ponytail and let his hair fall free to his shoulders.

“After that.” He started cleaning his sunglasses with the cloth he took from the bedside table, remembering David wearing them earlier that day. The boy looked so oddly satisfied, his eyebrows still knit together in an embarrassed scowl. Kaz cursed himself for thinking the child was actually cute, in a way. _They popped into your house this morning, don’t get attached._

“We will help them out.” Adam stated and closed his eyes.

“How?” He stopped his cleaning, waiting for a reply.

“They _can_ stay with us. Permanently.”

“I knew it!” Kaz turned around, his weak right arm trying to support him in his sudden turn. He was pointing the sunglasses at the Russian. “I knew it! Goddammit, Adam!”

“I am sleeping.” He said in a humming voice.

Kaz kept grumbling under his breath, turning back again. If it wasn’t for their father, the kids wouldn’t be _that_ much of a problem. They were just children, they needed support. School. Food. Clothes. They could be adopted, too. But that bear man sleeping in their guest room, really scared him to his core. Dying mauled by a bear wasn’t one of his wildest dreams, afterall.

He had already locked the bedroom door.

The lights were off in the little house in the middle of nowhere.

\--

In the guest room, the children faced their father. He was still soundly asleep, no sign of waking up. They had found him all curled up and David touched his forehead; it was still hot but it felt more lukewarm than it was before.

“Can you believe this guy?” Eli whispered, laying down on the other side of the bed, almost at the edge. His left leg was bent up so that his right one could rest over it, his arms propping his head up from behind as his usual stance while resting down. “I think I’ve never seen him sleeping so soundly.”

George was sitting next to their father, petting his hair. “I think he looks cute.” He softly giggled, “He’s drooling.”

“Let’s see what the doctor says,” Dave let himself go, resting his head on the soft pillow, pulling his younger sibling from the back of his sweater, “Georgie, let him be and get some sleep.”

Eli had to keep a loud laugh with a hand.

“Georgie? You haven’t called him that since we were like six.”

George moved on the bed to get under the sheets, _Georgie isn’t bad_ he judged the nickname as his head was still covered by the duvet.

Dave shrugged and elbowed his twin, “Shut up and turn off the light.” Eli clicked the lamp’s button and the room fell into darkness.

“Goodnight.” David yawned to his brothers, who faintly replied in yawns as well. He got lost looking at the warm, pitch blackness engulfing the room; there were no stars to count, no crackle of a dying fire to doze off to but

an outstanding and complete sense of

_peace._

\--

Jack batted his eyelashes twice because of the warm morning light in the room. His eye felt very sensitive after spending so long in this unusually pleasant darkness. He let out a cough that shook his body and he tried his old trick, closing the palm of his hand in a slow, tired movement.

_Was this real? Where was he?_

_Did he die?_

_Was this the afterlife?_

His ears picked up the same quiet voices from behind the closed door. That made him turn from his curled up position, until he sat straight up on the bed, with some efforts. His head was still aching and he felt drained out of all energy, but, surprisingly, he didn’t feel like dying per se. He brushed his face with the back of his hand and noticed he didn’t have his eyepatch, inquiring at blind eye with two fingers. He analysed the room, the sheets had a flowery pattern and the duvet on top seemed like it was hand-sewn, since it had many colourful patches of different designs.

The clock on the bedside table stated

_February 4 th, 2082. 10:45am._

He kept staring at the clock, believing for a moment that nothing had happened; that almost twenty years of his life weren’t gone forever and he was still eighteen. His mother would come in and reprimand him for sleeping in so much.

Then everything came back to him breaking the fantasy, as his animal instinct made him rise his head to sniff the air; he picked up many different types of smells, especially food. _Meat? Sweets? Eggs?_

His stomach grumbled so hard he gasped in surprise, frowning in an embarrassed expression. He held his belly with an arm and licked his lips, staring at the door. His bare feet touched the wooden floor and he noticed he wasn’t wearing any pants, but just boxers besides his sweater.

Jack tried to stand up but his legs gave out on him; his body weight shifted onwards and he grasped to the bedside table for support but he fell miserably on the floor, the clock and the lamp joining him. A loud thud and a small yelp escaped his mouth. He gasped again, looking around himself while he was on all fours on the ground. He heard a crash on his way down; the lamp had broken.

He knelt on his heels and looked at what he had done. His hands tried to put the lightbulb back together, moving the pieces. He broke a lamp and he felt incredibly sad for no apparent reason.

He held two pieces in his hands, they didn’t fit together. Resting his arms on his knees, Jack looked down at the broken lightbulb and whined. He didn’t understand why he felt so sad, but he couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t fix what was broken.

Suddenly, the door opened and George ran in, hopping up and down.

“Dad! Dad you’re awake!” he skipped to the man, ecstatically jumping to his neck. His father’s reply was an _oof_ sound, picking him up to avoid the child to step on broken pieces of glass. The boy smelled so clean he couldn’t keep himself from sniffing his clothes. He heard his son giggle because of the tickling, since he was sticking his nose between the boy’s neck and shoulder.

The twins came into the room, a little less exuberantly than their brother, but they walked quickly fast to his side.

“Goddammit dad, what the hell did you do?” Eli scolded his father, even though he was wearing half a smile on his face. Jack lifted his face to his two other sons and moved his head towards them, letting out a low, almost whispered cry. He held out both of his arms, George still clinging onto his neck.

David completed his twin’s smile with his own and dived in into the hug; Eli followed him with a fake exasperated sigh. Jack held his sons in his arms, squeezing them the best he could with the little strength he had. _Safe. Smiling. Like in his dream_.

This idyllic moment was abruptly interrupted when he heard footsteps reaching the room. For the first time he could clearly see the face of one of the two humans. He seemed older than Jack was, probably his late fifties or early sixties, long and silky silver hair and equally well kept moustache. He was wearing a white button shirt tucked into high-waist khaki pants.

“Welcome back to the world of the living.” He smiled, leaning on the side of the door with an arm. Jack’s reply was, of course, his low menacing growl. But this time it was George who tried to shush him, much to his surprise.

“Don’t be mean to grandpa, he’s helping us! Even grandpa Kaz is doing his best!”

Adam couldn’t keep a chuckle in and turned to the corridor, saying aloud, “See, the little one said you’re doing your best.” And the only response was a muffled and annoyed _you bet I am_.

“Come on, papa bear, we need you in the living room. You’ll get some food in a bit.” The Russian tried to fill the gap between them, as the twins were able to move away from their father’s grip. George was taken by the hand and Eli pulled him to his side.

Jack immediately let out a snarling-like sound, even though his face depicted more a frightened and distressed face. This time, there was no anger. He felt trapped, as the human moved closer and closer. Jack sat down, his palms over the broken pieces of the lightbulb. David moved a step forward, _dad, be careful!_

But his father backed off, making those oddly animalistic sounds as he crawled backwards till he hit the wall.

_Please, leave me alone,_

_Please, don’t get near me,_

_I am scared._

_Please, I beg you,_

Adam knelt down in front of the man. He heard his panicked breath, the terrified look he was giving him. The old man curled his eyebrows in a concerned expression.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He said in a comforting tone.

_That’s not true! That’s not true! That’s not true!_

Jack was asking his brain, was begging his brain to let him shapeshift, to let him feel safe. But this human-shaped body kept him exposed, even if he could attack the man with his bare hands. His eye shifted to his children, standing all together. There was worry in their eyes, surely not because of the human’s presence.

_You are still too young, you don’t know. You don’t know what they did. You don’t know them._

He couldn’t call for Ishmael’s help, he couldn’t hide his fear under his massive bear body. He was a boy again, he was alone again, he was scared again.

_Jack was standing in the cage._

He shook his head, staring at Adam. The man reached out a hand and that seemed to trigger the animal side of his panic. Jack gathered his strength to jump away, hitting the corner of the room. He was moaning in fear, Adam was taken aback and turned to his sons.

_I apologise, this will be harder than I thought._

The twins sighed as the Russian stood up, saying he would come back to clean after their father had calmed down. He patted his knees and addressed the bear with a saddened, but still composed look. After leaving the room, Eli and George followed him. The youngest let his gaze linger on their terrified father, who was being consoled by David.

“You are a nice person, don’t be sad because dad doesn’t like you.” George said, trying to cheer the old man up.

“I’m not sad, dear, I’m just worried for your father. What happened to him?” he patted George’s head as Eli shrugged.

“Beats me. He’s always been like that.” There was still bitterness in his words. He wanted to know. He wanted to know who is father was. Where he came from. Where _they_ came from.

“It’s gonna be fun to see you explaining his name is _John_ , now.” He sneered at the old man, dropping his brother’s hand and walking faster towards the living room. The younger boy held onto the Russian’s trousers, looking up at him.

“I think daddy got hurt by humans.” the boy’s eyes seemed lost, trying to find a point to focus on the blurry face he was looking at.

“Maybe you can be his friends. He needs friends”, George moved his eyes to the corridor, “I am his son. I can’t be his friend, too.”

And like that, he left the man’s side, as he stumbled his feet behind his older brother.

\--

“Dad, look at me. Dad. Dad, look at me!” David kept his father’s face in place, asking for his attention. His father’s left hand showed a cut from of the glass, a thin trail of blood flowing down.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, don’t worry.” He kept looking at the man’s eye, as his breathing quietly went back to normal and his stance softened. “Mr. Adam and Mr. Kaz don’t want to hurt us. They want to help.” David sat down to be in a more comfortable position.

He pointed at his clothes, “See? Mr. Kaz went to buy them _for us_!” Jack’s face looked tired, again. He didn’t want to be like this. It was too much, every time. _Too much._

“Mr. Kaz also let me wear his cool sunglasses. He was very kind.” David’s expression shifted to something Jack had never seen before. The boys had never interacted too much with strangers, let alone get friendly with them enough to have a light-hearted chat; the child was describing this human with such an enchanted voice it really puzzled his father.

Jack looked at his bloody hand and licked it, trying to disinfect the bruise. His son kept on telling him what the humans cooked for dinner and breakfast, how nice it was to sit on the sofa and sleep in a bed. Jack whispered something, at some point.

“What?” the boy got closer to his father’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he coughed, turning his head on the side, “I’m sorry I’m,” he stuttered and looked at his son, “like this.”

“Dad, why” David struggled to find the right words, “why don’t you tell _me_ what happened to you?”

The boy shifted his head on the side, placing a hand on his father’s cheek. Jack got lost into his son’s deep blue eyes; he was just like him. The similarity was outstanding.

Now, even if he were to tell him,

if he were to tell them,

_what would that amount to? What would that mean to them? To become as mistrusting as he is to humans? To hate humans?_

_What if they’d seek revenge?_

_What if they’d die for it?_

Jack sharply sniffed in, his heart racing as if he had to make the most important decision of his life.

_I killed my mother. Humans destroyed my brain. I was in a cage for ten years. You were made in a laboratory after they violated me. I killed more than a hundred people._

_I ruined you._

His face turned into a painful expression as he rubbed his cheek onto the boy’s hand. He shook his head and whined pitifully,

“I’m tired.”

Dave’s face was painted with resignation and a bit of disappointment; and yet, he just sighed and hugged his father.

“It’s okay, dad. We are all tired.”

\--

A white van stopped in the front yard, on the side a hospital’s name was shown in big red letters. Kaz was waiting at the door. He moved some steps forward as a black man hopped down from the right seat, followed, on the left, by a woman in a white coat. The man had a brown hat covering his short, curly, black hair and wore something similar to a working suit of the same shade of brown; the name of the hospital was written on a patch over his shirt’s right pocket.

The woman had a champagne pink foulard on and a white blouse. Her skirt was also on a darker shade of pink, her hair barely reached her neck in length and were a deep dark brown. On her coat, a badge read “Dr. Clark”.

DD, resting in his little house near the entrance, barked eagerly at the sight of the two new visitors but was quietly shushed by one of his owners.

“You came, finally.” Kaz nodded in a greeting sign as the other man waved with a hand, taking a backpack off from the van.

“Sorry for being late,” the woman explained, getting to the door and reaching out for a handshake, “I’m Dr. Clark and he is my assistant, Mr. Anderson.” She smiled politely as Kaz shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you, sir. You can call me Sigint, Mr. Anderson feels too formal.” The assistant reached out his hand too, receiving a shake in response.

“Sigint?”

“Yes, it’s a nickname. We all got one, for no reason in particular. Dr. Clark’s Para-medic, even though she’s not a para-medic.”

He shrugged and entered the house; the doctor chuckled and looked at Kaz’s confused face. He quickly composed himself.

“So, he’s the shapeshifter, right?”

“Yes, correct. You said there are children,” she paused for a moment, “I’ll start taking a look at them then—“

The doctor made a puzzled noise as Kaz shifted his eyes to the floor, scratching the back of his neck. “There is a bit of problem, though.”

“What is?”

“Their father.”

\--

Sigint was greeted by Adam, too and he introduced Eli and George, who were sitting on the sofa. They looked mildly concerned about the check-up, since they had never experienced one before.

The assistant clapped his hands, making the two kids jump up on their seats.

“Boys! You ready to meet the doctor?”

He watched the brothers’ heads shaking left to right in unison and he snorted.

“Well, you’re kids. Honestly that’d be weird, someone excited to meet a doctor.”

The doctor and Kaz peeked in from the front door, walking for a few steps before finding themselves in the living room.

Sigint put the backpack down in the middle of the carpet as Dr. Clark introduced herself to the other old man. She, then, slowly approached the brothers and smiled.

“Hello boys, I’m Jane Clark.” She bent a little over, “You can call me Jane or Dr. Clark.”

Eli frowned, as George hugged his arm, a little disturbed by the new strangers in the house and the threat of a doctor. He moved his head from Sigint to the doctor, before asking,

“Can you fix our dad?”

Kaz and Adam shared a worried look, before Kaz decided he’d better get the other twin there too and started stomping away.

“We will try our best.”

The woman asked for their names to write down on a notebook she had. George was the first one to be visited, especially under Eli’s pressure. The youngest brother asked for Adam to sit on the sofa too, just to be sure he could have an adult close to him.

She helped the boy out from his sweater, hearing his heartbeat and lungs through her stethoscope. George complained about the tool’s coldness and she apologised for it. She seemed like a nice person, for a doctor, Eli thought. His father never talked well of doctors in general. Dr. Clark checked his mouth, teeth and ears, before inevitably coming to his eyes.

The rest of the boy’s body was just a little bit undervelopped for his age, clearly due to malnourishment, but it was assured he could catch on with a right diet; his teeth were strong, his ears perfect.

His eyes, though, were another thing entirely. He was born with a strong cataract on his left eye, while his right eye suffered of near-sightedness, as she discovered while testing it with words written in various dimensions. The furthest she went, the less the boy could see.

The good news was they could prescribe him glasses as early as tomorrow, so he could see at least on his right eye.

The bad news was that, at some point, he would need an operation to remove the cataract. Nothing worrisome, just an in-day trip to the hospital.

But that was a problem for later.

Eli, on the other hand, seemed to be fine, in general. Besides the obvious malnourishment, his body seemed to be growing fine. The doctor made both the children shapeshift, making Sigint check on their bear form for any problems but as long as they didn’t have any difficulty in doing so or didn’t feel pain in any part of their bodies as cubs, they were deemed healthy. That was a relief for Adam.

\--

Kaz was looking at this ten years old boy, sitting on the floor, as his father was resting with his head on his lap. It was bizarre. The man frowned from behind his glasses; anxiety and fear were ready to strike him, since he was pretty much terrified of any close encounter with the children’s father.

Dave yawned and lifted his head. Kaz put his finger to his nose, signalling to the kid to stay quiet. He moved his left hand, pointing at the living room. He mouthed the word _doctor_ with his lips. Dave liked that odd, silent exchange. His head bobbed upwards in a nod of understanding as he shook his hand from right to left, telling the old man to get away from the door and from his father’s field of vision in general. Kaz stepped back, disappearing behind the wall.

He waited.

Dave’s voice reached him as he softly spoke to his father,

 _Dad, get some more rest_. He heard grunting and the man moving, his feet shuffling on the wooden floor. Massive steps. Kaz closed his eyes, picturing this violent creature assaulting him and Adam at any given moment; and he hadn’t seen the bear yet. He hadn’t seen the bear.

It sounded like a big sack of potatoes were dumped on the bed as it crackled under the weight. More shuffling and animal noises, _I’m just going to ask Eli something_ , the boy lied _. I will be back soon._

Kaz frowned. He heard the man whimpering.

 _I will be back soon, I promise._ David repeated, as the voice became closer and he popped out from the room, closing the door behind himself.

Kaz walked the corridor with him.

“He is very confused.” David walked with his head down, his voice carrying a deep concern, “he doesn’t recognise any of the smells in the house. He is very afraid of you two, too.”

Kaz couldn’t stop himself and snorted. “He’s afraid?” his fist clinging hard to his crutch after he had realised that wasn’t the place nor the person to express his own fears to. “I meant,” he cleared his throat, “he’s big enough to scare away wild animals. Why would he be afraid of us?”

“He thinks you’re going to hurt him.”

“That’s gonna be a problem when the doctor gets to him.”

David eyes widened as he saw Dr. Clark injecting a vaccine in his twin’s body. The blond boy grimaced just a little, George was eating cookies as a reward for not crying during his shot; he rose an arm and flailed it to his brother.

“Hey Dave! If you don’t cry the doctor gives you treats!”

Dave was fixed on the needle of the syringe. His face was so pale Kaz had to put a hand on his shoulder.

“You scared of needles, boy?”

Dave shook his head.

“No. Not really.” He lied again, “But maybe I should just check on dad some more—“

The doctor smiled at him, getting closer, the syringe still in her hand.

“Hello, you must be David.” She moved a lock of hair behind her ear, “Nice to meet you, I’m Dr. Clark and he’s my assistant, Sigint.” A black man waved an _hi_ from sitting on the sofa. Dave was looking at the syringe, his mouth tight in the shape of a perfect, straight line. Eli looked at his face, exploding into a big laugh.

“Brother, are you really such a coward?”

In the end David got the shot, accidentally growling from the time she got closer to the moment she pulled away. He didn’t cry, so he consoled himself with the cookies, holding his desecrated arm for his dear life. His medical results were the same of his twin. The verdict, besides George’s eyes, was for a healthy diet, a lot of rest and avoiding stressful situations.

The grown ups ended up talking about eventual visits to the hospital, while the three children were all sharing their treats. They never really got the chance to eat sugar-filled things, especially with this ease, which made them enjoy it even more.

Dave remembered his father never got to eat, as he slept most of the time away. And his mind urged him to point that out to his new guardians.

“Mr. Kaz,” he reached out a hand to pull at the man’s sweater, who was giving him his back. “Please, can the doctor visit dad?”

The doctor picked up the question before Kaz could even process it. She turned to the boy and looked at him with a nervous smile.

“Ah, yes. Let’s go see your father.”

\--

David opened the guest bedroom’s door, peeping in. His father seemed in a stasis, caught between sleep and wakefulness, his head resting on the pillow, his body all curled up on itself. The boy moved towards the bed and saw Jack lazily turn his head towards him. He still looked so sickly it made Dave’s young heart feel as if it was being squeezed by an invisible hand.

This big man looked so hopeless to his eyes. Harmless, almost.

“I told you I was coming back.” He whispered, taking his dad’s hand in his, “I brought someone else, too.” David grasped the man’s hand. He could see the puzzled expression on his father’s face as he stared into the child’s blue eyes.

“I brought a doctor.”

Jack hopped up, sitting on the bed. _Doctors_.

“I don’t like doctors either!” he said apologetically, waving his arms in front of his father, trying to avoid his predictable response, “but—but she visited all of us! She’s very nice and—“

The door opened up and Dr. Clark waltzed in, Sigint putting the backpack down on the floor and moving closer to the bed. “Hey there, man. How you feelin’?” a grin on his face, his hand raised in a wavy sign.

Jack’s natural state of panic riled up again; like always, strong as ever. He placed a hand on the wooden back of the bed to help himself into a defensive stance, vividly snarling at the two new presences.

_Don’t touch me,_

_Don’t touch me,_

Memories of medics, scientists, doctors. Drugging him, passing their hands on his body, studying him. Half asleep, half awake. His consciousness locked away.

The woman attempted a few steps to get closer, her hands straight in front of her body, as visible as possible to let him know she didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“I’m Dr. Clark,” she begun, “your children are very healthy for the life they’ve been leading up to now,” she explained, her smile had a touch of fear, a certain uneasiness tampered her voice as she cooed the shapeshifter into collaboration,

_You did_

_a marvellous job_.

Her voice echoed in Jack’s mind, and yet another one screamed

_Lies!_

_Lies!_

_Lies!_

Over and over, as he asked his brain, again, he prayed to it like a cruel God to spare his life. He prayed to shapeshift. He prayed to feel safe; he wanted to be away from humans. _Leave me alone_ , Jack was crying in his head. Big boss swiftly murmuring in his ears _you shouldn’t trust them, they are changing your children, they are making them revolt against you_.

Ishmael was silent in his hibernation. No answer.

Jack’s mouth filled itself with words of pain and mistrust but all he could manage was a roaring sound. It wasn’t like an animal’s, it wasn’t like a human’s.

“Please, calm down!” she shouted. Eli and George slid into the picture, standing at the door. Behind them, the two old men.

_Why, why is this happening?_

One of the humans was touching Eli’s shoulder, George was holding their hand,

Dave had brought in two more of them.

His mind was like a mirror smashed in a million pieces. Everyone seemed up against him. He felt so lost and confused as his hands gripped more onto the wood supporting him. He showed his teeth, trying his best to scare them – but he really just seemed terrified.

The man with the hat and dark skin spoke to him, _it’s alright buddy, don’t be afraid_ , he said,

The man shapeshifted into a beautiful, black panther. The animal swiftly moved to his side of the bed, lifting himself over it with his front paws. Jack had never seen a panther, even among the other captives; he studied the animal with a wary but interested look. He seemed to have focused his attention onto the panther, who started sniffing his hands as if he was demanding a pat on the head.

Most shapeshifters working in hospitals usually had a side training as therapy animals. Since they weren’t dangerous and unpredictable like actual animals, it was easier for them to calm down patients or help them in tasks requiring support. This is why Sigint was trying to approach the man in a different way, since he clearly needed something reliable to latch on to. David stepped away from the animal to leave his father more space to decide what to do.

Jack shook his head and moved further on the bed, the doctor coming behind the panther, giving him a scratch behind the ears. He made a playful sound, turning back to his human form.

“Please, she needs to check on you.” The assistant prompted Jack, “if you can’t shapeshift, it’s going to be a problem in the long run.”

Jack looked at his sons, all the three of them. He looked at the humans, then at the shapeshifter. He was shaking again, from some combination adrenaline and panic. And yet, he lowered his defences. _Good_ , he heard Sigint say, clutching a fist in approval. The doctor reached for the backpack, and took her own bag of tools out of it, placing them on the bed. Jack’s nervous eye followed her every movement.

“I need to give you a shot.” She explained, while a new syringe was taken out of its plastic wrap. George sneaked away from the two old men and rushed to his father, climbing up the bed. _You can hug me_ , he told him, _it doesn’t hurt, I did it too and I didn’t even cry!_

The boy pointed at the little plaster on his arm displaying his bravery as his father awkwardly pushed his son closer, till he was curled up on him. The doctor moved onto the bear man’s side. She touched his hand, which was firmly holding his child. An angered eye and a heavy breathing greeted her, but Dr. Clark wanted to get the job done; she took his wrist and felt an extreme pressure and stiffness in his muscles.

 _Don’t worry, dad_ , George kept telling him as he curled up the sleeve of his father’s sweater, trying to help. _You’ll be fine_. She injected him with something. It stung and it burnt and it felt like so many bullets in his skin, like so many memories of pain and confusion.

He yelled, the liquid flowing in his body, snapping his arm away from her grip. His eye moved around the room with betrayal covering his face. He felt so vulnerable, so scared, as he held his boy in his arm.

 _It’s morphine_ , the woman clarified, _it will make you feel a little better_.

George looked at his father, his body slowly stopping its shivering and the grip over him lessened in strength.

Jack’s whole being was shook by a weird sensation. But the feeling was actually somewhat pleasant, in a way he didn’t remember ever feeling and couldn’t really explain. He was lightheaded, a sudden warmth filling his body. All the voices were a little muffled now, but it wasn’t scary. There was no threat in those voices, it was more like a dream. The doctor was able to gently push him down on the bed; she was whispering something to him, probably soothing reassurances, as the children collectively gasped at the scene.

“What did you give him?!” Eli exclaimed, jolting towards the doctor and glancing at his father who looked perplexedly relaxed, if that was even a thing.

“It’s a sedative, don’t worry. He will be alright later in the day.” She calmed everyone down, taking out her stethoscope. Dr. Clark lifted the man’s sweater, revealing his terribly bruised body – to say nothing of the obvious scars on his face. Sighing worriedly, she placed the cold metal on his chest. And she heard whimpering, actual human sounds of a man in distress.

In Jack’s clouded mind, there were the cold of the metal and foreign hands on him. He was so tired of everything he felt like the only option left to him was crying. The morphine was doing marvels, since he would have probably become violent because of his resurfacing traumas. His moans were quiet and unfocused; he seemed not to understand exactly _why_ he was crying.

 _I want my mum_ , he found himself thinking. That was so childish, and yet it was the only thought his mind was providing him in this bewildering moment.

The doctor patted his cheek, hushing him, _no, no, don’t cry_

_Nobody wants to hurt you_

He closed his eye, feeling George’s small hands in his hair,

_Nobody wants to hurt me_

His son’s sweet reprimand reached his ears,

_Daddy, I didn’t cry_

_If you cry you won’t get any treats, I told you,_

_I get sad when you cry,_

He heard more voices, probably the humans had likely stepped closer. The doctor whispered

_You will be fine._

He saw his mother’s face.

\--

The examination lasted barely fifteen minutes, even though Dr. Clark had to skip several of the tests because of the morphine in the man’s body. His right eye needed drops to keep it moist even though it was completely blind. The other one seemed to be fine. His scarred body didn’t show any sign of infections, luckily, but his state of malnourishment was far worse than that of his children. He needed a great deal of rest and a trip to the hospital for further tests, including a blood or urine samples. Both Sigint and the doctor agreed on suggesting a psychiatrist to come and check on him later in the week; he needed something prescribed, like a mood stabiliser.

Physically, his body just needed a break to regain its strength and energy so he would be able to shapeshift again in no time.

Mentally, he needed proper help from a specialist, but there was no chance they could bring him back hundred percent.

For now, _John_ – the children agreed on that name, afterall – was lying on the bed, his breath regular even around the humans. Eli sat on his side, holding his father’s hand, David near him, standing up.

George pointed at some glass and a lamp, neatly put together in a pile out of the way. “Grandpa, there’s glass on the floor.” He looked at Adam.

The Russian was about to reply to the child to be careful, but he suddenly stopped, a little shaken by the lamp sitting on the ground upright and the glass of the lightbulb gathered close to it.

And Adam realised, he never had the time to do _that_ himself since he was busy with the doctor.

And Adam realised,

John had cleaned it.


	8. First Breath After Coma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0o8JCxjjpM
> 
> Not beta'd.

“So,” a pause, “do you like the name _John_?”

The sun of the late afternoon filled the living room; two people, a man and a woman, were sitting on the sofa. The man had brown hair the colour of melted chocolate, tied in a small, high ponytail. He looked like he was in his late forties, wearing a black sweater and military green pants. There was softness on his face, even though he looked somewhat serious.

The woman had hair her hair down, also brown. She was focusing her attentive, green eyes on the inside of a grey bag. She had been silent since they had gotten there. Her clothes were plain, a black t-shirt, black gloves and beige trousers.

Another man was sitting on the floor, leaning his back on the armchair. His knees were high to his chest. His beard was wild and comparatively longer than the one worn by the other man in the room, while his hair were reaching his shoulders, also very unkempt.

Jack shook his head.

“You don’t like it?” he was a psychiatrist, his name was Ahab. He was a shapeshifter too and could turn into a brown, bulky dog, which was the first contact he made with his new patient, establishing a silent and very unstable trust. His assistant was a quiet woman and for that she was just called _Quiet_ , of course. Jack didn’t feel a threat coming from them, may it be the silence of the two or the fact that there was just one human in the room.

His children were in the bedroom, probably asleep. One of the two old men was outside, tending to his plants. The other went to town.

He shook his head again.

“Do you want to tell me what your name is?”

Ahab saw the man hide his face in his knees and wrote that down as a _no_ , yet again. Quiet finished rummaging in the bag and moved down on the ground with Jack, alerting him; she only pushed the bag towards him and shuffled her hand over it, inviting the man to choose something.

Jack curiously moved his head onwards to look at the inside of the bag, smelling the air for any trace of menace. He met Quiet’s eyes; she had a neutral, calm expression. No fear, no anger, no spite. Inside the bag there were a teddy bear, what seemed like a cassette tape, a pencil case with a notebook, some books (Moby Dick, 1984 and others), newspapers, magazines and other toys. Quiet backed off from the bag just a little, as Jack’s inquisitive hand brought it closer. He relaxed his positions, starting to dig in the bag. He took the teddy bear out and looked at it. The toy reminded him of the one he had as a child, even if it was different, the texture was another and the size was bigger. But he remembered how nice it felt to hug one. He moved the teddy in his hands, looking at its every side, before gazing at the woman for approval.

Quiet gave him a thumb up.

He could virtually take anything from the bag, Ahab added. Jack placed the bear near himself, making it sit upright. He took the cassette tape with the earphones and noticed it had a small screen on it. He didn’t know how to use the tool, so he placed it down in front of Quiet, in a shocking – even for himself- attempt to communicate directly with a human. She handed over an earphone to him and he placed it inside his ear, making him frown a little. Then, she turned the cassette tape on. It was actually a new model for a music-streaming device, just in the shape of a cassette tape. Quiet selected a song, he didn’t know what it was, but it started playing. He hadn’t listened to music in ages, his ears weren’t used to it anymore; it sounded very electronic,

_Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes  
I thought you died alone, a long long time ago_

The assistant moved closer, as Jack was listening intendedly to the song. She snapped her finger to catch his attention and showed him with a hand how to search music in the device.

A realisation came to him.

He snatched the device from her hands. She looked at the psychiatrist, who turned his head a little with a puzzled expression. Jack sought the only song he remembered. He awkwardly wrote

_Sing a Song_

in the search bar, taking way too much time to select each letter; they would mix up in his head and he wasn’t used to use technological things. He selected the first one that appeared.

The song started playing,

He was overwhelmed.

His mother voice singing it to him, her blurred face, her smile. Pieces of memories broke into him, _his life_ ,

_He had a life once,_

_He was happy once,_

_He had been a child, a young man, he had dreams and hobbies, he went to school, he had friends. He had his mother._

_He was just a regular boy, once._

Ahab and Quiet witnessed him breaking down into tears, muffled sobs escaping the man’s mouth. He let the song play, the device falling from his hands making a small thud on the carpet. His face was now covered by both of his hands. The sobs grew louder.

_He was a person once._

_It was all real._

_He was real._

Ahab moved down onto the carpet, reaching out a hand to touch Jack’s shoulder. He couldn’t stop his tears. For how much he had cried in these years, behind bars, in the cage, for the first time

For the first time

He felt as if the tears were cleansing him. It was liberating. It was as if he, really, had never cried before. _I love you, mum. I love you._ Ahab rubbed his hand on the man’s arm, still sobbing, battling his urge to keep shouting his pain through tears.

Because of his emotional state, Quiet managed to touch Jack’s hand without being growled at, and, as he was calming down his sobs, she moved the teddy bear in his hand.

Jack sniffed, like a child who just had a rough moment, trying to compose himself. He looked at the toy. The small bear was immediately trapped in the man’s arms, hugging it as he tried to clean his tears with the back of his free hand.

He was a mess, but he had never felt better, somehow.

\--

Adam came back into the house and found the psychiatrist ready to leave. They left the teddy bear and the music device in the hands of their patient. He was curled up, near the French door of the living room, listening to his song. The teddy bear was on his lap and he was eating some kind of brownish snack from a yellow box. His expression seemed blank but contemplative.

“We will come around every week, if that is not a bother for you.”

Adam kept focusing on the man sitting on the ground and replied with a _no, no it’s not a problem_.

“How is he?” he asked. The old man was starting to grow attached to this odd family living in their house, since it had been at least four days since they had promptly moved in.

“Well,” Ahab cleared his voice while Quiet crouched down near Jack, probably telling him they’d come next week again, “He doesn’t really talk. At least, not to us.”

“I see.”

“But he made progress already, which is good. He let Quiet touch him.”

\--

The room was silent again, enough to let Adam wonder whether the shapeshifter had fallen asleep or not. He had previously left for the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge for leftovers, deciding what to eat for dinner. The sun was going to set soon, anyway. Holding a plate with some mashed potatoes and a beef cutlet in his hands, made him realise that indeed, the bear dad hadn’t been really eating anything. He did eat, of course, but it seemed like he didn’t trust the food.

Even though his children were eating in front of him, feeling fine.

Even though they, as humans, were eating in front of him, feeling fine.

He would just look at the food, eat two bites and leave it as it is. Eli told them they would hear their father’s stomach rumbling in the night because of hunger; he wasn’t getting better.

Adam put the plate in the microwave to warm it up a bit and headed back to the living room. John was there, his head leaning on the glass. He was staring outside, the teddy bear well placed on his chest. His right hand was abandoned on the floor, after he had finished eating whatever the psychiatrist gave him earlier. A soft, almost inaudible sound came from his earphones. The same song, on repeat.

He looked like a decadent statue, where the shiny and clean marble once stood, now corrosion and time showed their true faces. John always seemed exhausted.

Adam moved some steps towards him, and the bear was alerted almost immediately; but he didn’t growl. He didn’t move. He just tiredly glanced at the old man, who had crouched down right in front of him. The Russian picked up the yellow box of what appeared to be some kind of snack, “ _Calorie Mate_ ,” he read the box, holding it a little further away to focus, “did Dr. Ahab gave it to you?”

No answer. John’s eye shifted back to the outside, which was another incredible sign of trust, if one were to analyse it. He wasn’t _actually_ trusting them, but he did understand the place he was in wasn’t that dangerous. He didn’t like them, he didn’t like anyone anymore. As long as his children were safe, though, he would be alright living in any place. But his face lines, the dark circles under his eyes, the general fatigue showing on his body weren’t lying.

He wanted to rest.

“Did you like it?”

Jack thought the persistency of this human was almost annoying; he didn’t want to talk and he couldn’t, anyway. The eye facing outside was focused on what he was seeing, snow melting, grass. Sometimes the dog would trot by. His blind eye was on the human’s side and he knew he had made a mistake when he felt a hand touching his head.

The numbness he was immerged in suddenly disappeared as he sat straight up and turned towards the human. The song still playing in his ears, like a soothing reassurance. _You will be fine._

Jack didn’t growl, but stared confusedly at the hand lifted in mid-air. The old man wasn’t surprised, he was expecting that reaction. Adam greeted the glance with a little smile.

“Do you want to eat something else?” he proposed, putting his hand back over his knees. Jack followed the movement and rested his eye on the Russian’s knees. No answer. Adam sighed and stood up, John following his every movement.

“Come on.” He heard the beeping sound of the microwave. “You can eat all the leftovers you want.”

Adam waited for almost a minute for the shapeshifter to move, even just a little. He didn’t.

He kept staring. He felt the man’s eye on his back as he returned to the kitchen, feeling rather defeated. Adam took out more plates, opened cabinets and put on some hot water to make tea. When he turned around, he actually jumped out of fear, letting out a small yelp.

“Damn, you frightened me.” He let out an awkward chuckle. John was sitting down, near the kitchen door. He was looking at the food on the table and he clearly was sniffing it. The cleansing tears he wept earlier made him extremely hungry; he knew that was always his usual hunger. He was always hungry.

But he kept himself in check, since he was used to ration food for his children. Also, human made food wasn’t the choice he would have gone for. Sometimes he still remembered the taste of that half cooked rice bowl he shared with his mother, and that cut his appetite short.

Today though, today he was in the mood for comfort. He wanted to feel alright. He wanted to be fine.

Adam took the plate he had previously warmed up and squatted down in front of the bear, handing it out. Jack didn’t take it. He did smell it, but didn’t move a muscle. The Russian decided to place it on the ground and stand up again; that was the moment Jack decided he could take the plate, moving it closer with a hand.

Adam tried to tell him to use the spoon he had put in the plate, but the suggestion was lost on the voracity of the other. He cleaned out both the mashed potatoes and the cutlet in no time, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Do you,” Adam paused, “want anything else?”

Jack finally replied with an overly excited nod.

\--

“You should buy something for dinner.” Adam’s voice sounded quite apologetic as he whispered in his phone, standing close to the corridor’s wall. From the other side, Kaz’s confused voice asked for an explanation. Afterall, they went to town for groceries about two days ago.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “John kind of ate all the leftovers.”

Jack could hear the human whisper something, outside the kitchen. Lying on the floor, he almost wanted to fall asleep right there. The clock’s regular ticking was the only sound in the whole house, besides the old man’s voice.

His stomach was satisfied. He had eaten voraciously every type of food Adam would present him, even fruit. His last bite before taking a break on the floor was, indeed, an apple. He liked he consistency of the fruit and its sugary pulp so he nibbled at it, seemingly to avoid finishing it.

The warm yellow light from the chandelier caught his eye’s attention; he felt like it was too bright and he shielded his face with a hand. He turned his palm towards himself and loosely closed it, pondering. There was something ironic in all of this, Jack thought, lying on the floor of some humans’ house. His children sleeping in the other room. He was alive, despite all.

He let out a couple of sharp coughs, slowly turning on his side to let his body calm down before awkwardly standing up. He could still hear the man on the phone as he passed him in the corridor; Adam was giving him the back, his voice trying to keep a moderate tone even though he was clearly trying to talk over his partner on the other side of the line.

Jack didn’t mind it too much as he moved into the living room once again to retrieve his teddy bear and his music. He sneaked around the corridor, as if he was sure Adam wasn’t going to see him; but of course the man just stopped talking mid-sentence to stare at the bear walking past him. Their gazes meeting in all of Jack’s seriousness and Adam’s confusion.

Jack heard Kaz’s irritated voice coming from the phone, _Adam? Adam, did you hung up on me?_ While he tiptoed inside the guest bedroom and closed the door behind himself. The room was so much warmer compared to the rest of the house, probably because of the three sleeping children. Their steady breathing enveloped all sounds and sometimes a little snore would escape their mouths. Jack moved near the bed, the only light coming from behind the light curtains; a fading orange coloured his shadow, casted upon his sons. He held his toy plush dearly to his chest, admiring those three sleepyheads.

Jack bent over a little, slightly touching one of Eli’s blond locks. He took the teddy bear and placed it near George, asleep between his brothers. The boy really started to resemble his father, especially in all of his facial features, which Jack thought was very amusing.

Dave had his face hidden in the pillow while his twin was facing upwards, his mouth slightly open. Jack closed his eyes and wandered in his memories, the small hands of his babies caressing his fur. The white room. Their giggles. George’s tears. The wholesome feeling shaking his body as he held them in his arms, understanding what life was, once again.

He opened his eye and he saw his bear muzzle appearing in his field of vision; he moved his head around and saw paws, fur, claws. He could finally smell everything again, the almost dark room appeared more lit and defined thanks to his bear view. He took a step back and accidentally made a muffled noise of happiness that made Eli wake from his slumber. The child yawned and scratched an eye, his dad moving closer yet again as he sniffed the boy’s face. Eli giggled and pet his father’s fur, still half asleep.

“Dad, stop it.” He held onto one of Jack’s soft ears and pulled it a little to make him stop. It was always soothing to wake up to this, Eli thought. And then the realization hit him.

_Dad is a bear._

_Dad is a bear, again._

The twin sat up and turned on the bedside table’s lamp, almost shouting in surprise at the view.

“Dad!” he gasped, turning to slap David awake, his face showing an unusual bright grin, “You’re a bear!” David groaned in the bed, cursing his twin while he touched his head and moved to his side. His eyes widened at the sight and he propped himself up, jumping off the bed and hugging the big, furry neck of his father.

“Dad! You can shapeshift again!” Jack let out some happy sounds, bumping his head onto David’s and Eli’s.

George was the last to wake up, and his father thought to lick his cheek a little, moving his small body with his nose. The youngest brother opened his eyes, kind of disturbed by the commotion around him but he immediately found comfort in holding onto his father’s fur, the same as when he was just a baby. He grasped his hands on the fur, while the bear moved his head up so that the boy was helped in standing up on the bed. He didn’t seem too surprised, even though he hugged the animal’s nose.

“You’re back.” He smiled.

The boy shapeshifted to his cub form to cling better on his father. Jack sat down and took the cub in his paws, hugging him dearly. The twins shapeshifted too, sniffing their father eagerly, before cuddling on his lap. The little bear family was all about vocalising their happiness and relief; those weird sounds caught Adam’s attention.

He had previously closed the conversation with his husband and was now stepping towards the guest room’s door. The sounds were definitely very animal-like, he just thought the children were playing with their dad, so he opened the door with ease.

Adam wasn’t _scared_ per se. Just, taken aback if you will. The old man stood still, hand still on the knob as he stared at the big predator sitting peacefully in his house. The bear stared back, putting his youngest cub down, moving himself back on his fours.

“Dad?” David turned back into his human form and checked on his father; the animal kept his eye fixed on the human, but there were no growls or any defensive traits showing.

“Dad, don’t you dare.” Eli followed his twin’s example and walked on the bear’s side, patting him with a hand.

Jack felt secure now, safe. He was surely the superior one in strength; whatever happened, he could defend his sons whenever he needed. But at the same time, there was no reason for him to attack, or to be scared. His big paws slushed over to where Adam was standing, stopping right in front of the man.

Adam had seen bears up close, but they were usually dead and surely not breathing on his face. Except, this wasn’t some wild bear. This was a shapeshifter, a human too. As soon as the Russian moved the hand from the knob, he saw the animal’s eye lock its focus onto it. He rose the hand, slowly placing it close to the bear’s muzzle, the palm facing upwards.

Jack’s eye shifted from the hand to the man’s face, as he started sniffing it for good, before moving a step forward. He inquired his nose on Adam’s clothes and face, puffing air onto it. Adam batted his lashes a couple of times with an annoyed expression.

The man had the untrusting eye again on his hand, as he moved it to the side of the bear’s head. With no rush, the hand met with the bear’s soft fur. Nothing happened, besides the animal staring at Adam’s right in the face.

“So, now I can touch you?” He asked. A snort was the only reply, but Adam kept caressing the fur of this big bear. He didn’t seem to mind it.

The children collectively let out a relieved sigh, while George, still in his cub form, trotted towards the two adults. He stood on his hinder paws and leaned onto Adam’s leg, calling for his attention.

“What?” The old man chuckled, as he picked up the little bear; his dad snuggling his nose onto the cub’s tummy, making him yelp out amused cries.

Adam seemed to smile to nothing, his voice eerily excited.

“Let’s show your dad to grandpa Kaz.”

\--

Jack seemed calmer around Adam, now that he was able to shapeshift again. George was napping again, on his father’s chest; the man was resting down on the carpet, his ears filled with the same song on repeat. The peaceful scene hid their awful past so well, making them appear just as a sleepy dad and his child.

The twins were in the kitchen with Adam, telling them that Kaz’s reaction to their father might be a little _extra_. Both of the boys were drinking their tea and snatching cookies from the plate in front of them every now and then. He told them about the hospital and the psychiatrist; how they should probably be going first thing next week.

“Your brother is going to see again, the operation doesn’t even require him to stay in the hospital.” He told them, putting back the cookie jar in the cupboard and moving for a chair. “We might ask for a crew of all shapeshifters, but I don’t know if that would be possible.”

“Well, dad’s gotta deal with that.” Eli curled his legs up on the chair, holding his mug with both hands, “I mean, he needs a visit too, right? Maybe it’ll help him.”

Eli stared at the old man’s face.

“Won’t it?”

“I’m not sure, but Dr. Ahab today did tell me he is already making progress.” And Adam could see their small faces light up, all of a sudden. It was delightful, this happiness for such a small victory like letting a human touch his hand.

The boys turned their heads to the kitchen’s door as they heard the rustling of keys from the entrance and Adam sighed, hopping up from his seat, _it’s showtime_ , he prompted the kids to go to the living room.

Kaz huffed some shoppers inside, handling them the best he could before Adam got to him.

“Let me help.”

“I can do it on my own, it’s fine.” The man nodded, patting his husband’s shoulder after putting down the last bag inside, letting DD slip in the house as he closed the door. That dog always won him over, in a way or another.

As the big pup DD was, he went to sniff the big man lying on the carpet, finding a child on his chest, too. Jack opened his eye, meeting the dog’s nose and eventual shower of happy licks invading his face. He huffed, turning his head and letting out a laugh because of the tickling sensation. His own laugh felt weird to Jack’s ears, it had been a while since the last time he did that; it felt good.

“DD!” he heard David say, rushing to the dog’s side to cuddle the animal. George snuggled on his dad. He was awake now, but his eyes were still closed as if he didn’t want to let the comfortable position go. His father immediately held the boy in his arms, moving him closer to his face. He kissed his forehead and whispered _you are awake_ in his ear, to which George responded by placing a hand on his dad’s mouth.

“You know, John is doing _better_.”

“What’s with the stress on that _better_.”

The two men heard the twins fight over the dog and DD’s amused barks.

“The psychiatrist said he already let a human touch him.”

“That’s interesting and all but may I go change before your story time?” Kaz asked, leaning on his crutch expectantly.

“Yes, but when I say he’s doing _better_ ” a pause, interrupted by George’s annoyed voice about being woken up by his brothers fighting; DD begun to whine, _don’t worry DD it’s just dad_ , David said. _See? You can smell him_.

“I mean this.” Adam walks to the living room, followed by a confused Kaz. But then he sees it. He sees the animal in their living room; _a huge, grizzly bear, trying to befriend their goddamn dog_.

“Kaz, he is not dangerous.”

The face of the man dropped all of its colour, moving an awkward step back.

“Kaz, please, listen to me—“, Adam touched his companion’s arm as if he was trying to calm him down. John noticed them. His eye stared directly into Kaz’s. The animal moved his nose upwards, trying to catch the old man’s scent.

But he started to move forward. Closer, closer to Kazuhira. And Kazuhira moved further, further away until he bumped onto the wall. The twins were reassuring him their father just wanted to be friendly, but _how could he trust them?_ He saw what this creature was capable of and how much it didn’t like humans.

“This,” Kaz said with a trembling voice, frowning, his shoulders touching the wall, “This wasn’t a good idea.”

Adam was still there, near him, as John was just a bunch of steps away from the two men. He was huge, those claws were as long as a whole finger, teeth sharp like razors. Ready to kill. The bear’s damaged eye, closed, seemed more menacing now more than ever.

Kaz’s breathing was rushed, _how can Adam be so calm_ , he thought. His expression warped into pure shock when the hand of the Russian moved forward, towards the creature itself.

“Adam!” his breath cut short when the bear’s nose lightly poked the old man’s hand. He slowly moved the hand under the bear’s mouth and started scratching the animal.

“I told you to calm down, he is not going to hurt you. Or me, for the matter.” The Russian stated, contentedly moving the other hand on the bear’s side to pet John on both sides and he wasn’t really bothered by it. The bear, however, did keep his eye fixed onto the old man as he was getting cuddled.

After a minute, the animal shook the hands off and moved his nose onto Kaz; it roamed on his chest, sniffing him in every inch of his clothes.

The man was petrified.

He closed his eyes when the bear started his journey on his face, feeling the heavy breath of the animal on his skin, as his sunglasses got covered in mist. John let out a powerful sigh from his nostrils, before turning back on his paws to walk into the living room once again.

“I told you.” Adam repeated, as Kaz had to gather his strength not to fall because of the adrenaline rushing out. He felt his husband’s hand cupping one of his cheeks and he shifted his gaze from the bear – now turned back into a human – to the Russian.

“This was a mistake.” Kaz bothered to add his point of view, feeling sweaty out of fear. “I’m not sure I want _that_ in our house.”

“Stop being paranoid” Adam frowned, “and he is a _person_ just like you and me. He just needs” his head turned towards the living room “time to heal, I think.”

\--

“You understand you and the children have to go to the hospital, don’t you?”

Jack was seemingly ignoring the question, skipping trough pages of a magazine, only focusing on pictures. He was sitting on the living room’s carpet, Adam right in front of him arched forward from the sofa. The shapeshifter never kept his eye on either of the humans whenever they were talking to him; it felt like he was purposely trying to avoid any interaction, after he had recognised them as _Adam_ and _Kaz_.

Six days had passed since the family was first taken in by the old couple. Three days since the father started eating a normal – for him- amount of food.

The kids already looked healthier in comparison to Jack, who kept a seemingly pitiful look.

“Dr. Ahab will be there.” Adam continued, gazing over to the bear. His human figure was imposing and fearsome, yet his behaviour seemed the one of a child handling his favourite storybook. It was an incredible juxtaposition; Adam wondered if this was just the way John’s mind was trying to figure out the situation he was in.

“He will ask some shapeshifter doctors to perform the operation on George.”

The old man’s voice was soothing, trying to find a way to connect with the bear. Silence; the ticking of the clock. Adam’s sigh.

“They will make your son see with his own eyes, for the first time in his life.”

John halted the page shuffling, his eye focusing onto a picture of an ad; a woman staring back with her deep green eyes.

“Can you do it for him?” the man folded his arms and leaned over just a little more, “It’s just a small visit, alright? All of you will be back together in no time.”

Jack moved his hands to cover his face, breathing through them. _What should he do?_ He knew what he _ought_ to do, but hospitals were terrifying. Doctors were demons with sharp teeth and cold hands, he didn’t want his children to be touched again. He didn’t want to be touched again. But Ahab seemed kind,

Adam seemed kind,

_Should he trust them?_

_Mum, should I trust them?_

The thought of his boy finally able to see the world was so tempting, so dreamlike. He already did so much harm to his sons. Jack would never be able to forgive himself if this was really the only chance they had to be happy and he didn’t seize it for his own traumas. For his own damage. His own selfishness.

It was alright if he was to die, if this was as trap, if this meant it was going to be another trick life played on him,

As long as there was the one percent chance his children could be fine.

He was going to take it.

Jack turned to Adam and he stared so hard the human thought he was probably going to jump on him, somehow. But there was no reply, the silence was extremely uncomfortable. It had to be broken by the Russian’s words,

“Have you decided?” Jack’s head stood still. His eye carving a hole deep into Adam’s face, _I am trusting you. I am trusting you,_ Jack thought.

  _I will kill you_ , Big Boss whispered in Jack’s ears, _I will kill you, human, if this trust is broken._

_I will kill you._

“Will you go to the hospital?”

Jack nodded, now his field of vision moved to the carpet, to the magazine. He felt unnerved, anxious. His head bobbed forward and he lied down on the ground. The texture of the carpet brushing onto his cheek as his eye was staring to nothing in particular. He could feel sweat on his forehead, his stomach twisting. Angrily. Jack’s expression morphed into something else, indescribable pain.

Big Boss was still whispering in his ears.

_Revenge._

\--

The noise of an electric razor cut into the morning quietness, as the bathroom was now the stage of Adam’s grooming session. Or better yet, Kaz was cutting the children’s hair under Adam’s guidelines. It was a simple task, just getting them a buzz cut to clean them out of any possible lice or parasites; they would end up looking like small escaped prisoners, _but weren’t they in the end?_

Eli wasn’t really excited about the idea. _You’re not going to the hospital looking like wild animals_ , Kaz stated bluntly as he threatened the extremely rebellious child of strapping him on the chair if he wasn’t going to sit down. David was chuckling in the background. Near him, George was quietly sitting on the floor, looking at the scene, or what he could gather from it.

The boy had been silent and generally more irritable than he had ever been. He would end up clinging to his father almost all the time; it wasn’t an extremely noticeable change, but it was there. The twins thought it could be he hadn’t yet adapted to the new environment, the old men just thought it was a side of his character.

But George told his father.

_Dad, I’m scared. Dad, I’m so scared. I don’t want to be with doctors._

_Dad, I’m so scared._

Jack’s hugs made George’s fear for the surgery disappear into nothing. When he was in his father’s arms, everything was fine _. Because dad seemed better, he was going to protect him._

 _It’s okay_ , Jack would whisper while holding his son in a firm but gentle grip, _it will be fine_. _You will be fine._

George’s fist would clench onto his father’s clothes, listening to his breathing and his awkward, but low, calming voice,

_Be brave, son._

\--

Jack’s hairstyling session was Adam’s exclusive, in the garage. The car was parked outside and the old man didn’t seem to mind the cold coming from the wide open garage door.

A single chair sat in the room, and over it Jack was having a hard time dealing with the position.

He didn’t know how he got himself in the situation, but the Russian seemed extremely happy about cutting his hair and shaving his beard. He really thought that human was a very weird one.

“If you’re going to make your first appearance at the hospital, you gotta look better than” he gestured vaguely to the whole of Jack’s being “ _this._ Let’s make you less like a homeless person, shall we?”

Jack frowned, his worries rising up as soon as Adam turned the razor on and got closer. A growl, which resembled more a yelp than anything, escaped the man’s mouth as he felt Adam’s hand touching his head.

“Okay, just growl again if I hurt you somewhere.” He cheerfully added. The razor started its journey onto his head, cutting big chunk of hair off his head. Jack looked at the locks on the floor; he used to cut his hair and beard with a knife, like a savage. Sometimes he did get scissors in his tools, maybe found somewhere, maybe stolen. He usually reserved those to his children. A mocking of a haircut.

The gentle stroking of Adam’s hand on his head was pleasant. The buzzing of the razor became a background noise as he realised his eye was closed. Jack let his guard down, relaxing; allowing a human to be this close with a possible weapon in his hand.

Sometimes, Jack was too tired. He was too tired to be scared.

He was just overwhelmed. When too many emotions assaulted him at once, his head was silent and he would go numb. Whatever anxiety or paranoia, they could wait for when he was alone and in pain. For when his thoughts were his only companions.

Now, he was getting a haircut and today was calm.

_Today was calm._

Adam stopped the buzzing after at least ten minutes of dealing with that impossible brown nest of hair. Jack immediately opened his eye and stared at the man who was quietly cleaning the razor by giving it little nudges. Everything felt aloof, quiet. Mundane.

Some hair fell inside his sweater and he felt a little tingling sensation on his neck, resulting in him moving his shoulder to shake it off. He soon shook his head too, just like a dog would and Adam’s laugh caught his ear. He stopped mid-air with his head slightly turned on the side, to stare at the man.

“You’re kind of cute, you know.”

Jack’s puzzled expression peaked in a frown. He sniffed out an annoyed response as Adam lifted the man’s chin to start his shaving. Jack’s eye didn’t know where to go, as he usually never stared directly into anyone’s eyes, unless he wanted to state something or act menacing. He shifted his head out of Adam’s light grip, groaning.

“What’s now?” he heard the man’s complaining voice, even though he could recognize an amused tone in it. Adam caught his chin again, hushing Jack’s temper-tantrum with a _stay still, don’t be a baby_. The shaving resumed when Jack’s solution was growling his annoyance out for a while with his eye closed. Adam’s hand moved his head around masterfully, as he had already done it before multiple times. He did, actually, for Kaz.

Then the click on the razor again and everything went quiet. Jack looked at the floor around the chair, invaded by hair. He felt shame yet again and he still didn’t quite get why.

“You look _so_ much younger now.”

Adam smiled at him and took a small mirror from a nearby table, holding it in front of the man.

The reflection made Jack gasp. The scars on his face were more visible now, but the lack of beard framed his face differently, almost

Almost like when he was captured.

His hair was short now, resembling the haircut he used to have when he was eighteen. It was _him_. The reflection, _it was him_. An aged, sick man was staring right into his youthful self. Adam was starting to worry at the painful expression Jack made in response to the mirror. He saw the shapeshifter reach out a hand to touch his own reflection.

He muttered some unintelligible sounds, like a low, reserved cry. This time, they weren’t those explosive emotions walking over his senses but it was a melancholic contemplation of what he had become and who he still was.

Adam handed over the mirror to him. Jack grasped it with both of his hands as he slowly opened his blind eye, to much of Adam’s surprise. He was staring at himself with both eyes. His fingers pressing onto the reflecting glass as if he wanted to get inside the image. To go back.

Small droplets of silent tears tainted the man in the mirror. Unlike other times, his eye was just a little watery, allowing the tears to fall down.  He cleaned it with a sleeve right after.

“John?” The man softly asked, almost wary of interrupting this moment, “Are you alright?”

Jack took a moment to recollect himself and nod. He gradually lifted his head to look at Adam’s face with a faint, but surely present, smile.

\--

“Who is this!?” George cried out loud at the sight of his father, beardless and with such short hair he never even realised that hairstyle could exist on him.

All the three children had various degrees of shock pictured on their faces, even though their father was equally bewildered by his sons’ new haircuts. He patted the twin’s heads, loving the sweeping the hair made on his hands. George was actually crying when he was picked up by Jack and his hands only found rough skin instead of a soft beard.

“He looks like he’s barely twenty-five now.” Kaz snorted, sitting on the sofa, Adam standing near him. Oddly enough, Kaz wasn’t _so_ scared of Jack’s human form, probably because he looked so distracted and uninterested in them most of the times.

“Right? It’s amazing.”

“Maybe if you shave you _could_ look less like an old man.” He chuckled as a light slap greeted his head.

“Grow it back!”

“George stop whining, it’ll grow back _eventually_.” Eli sighed and scratched behind his now naked neck, already missing his long hair. David focused on his father, trying to console his baby brother. The man seemed almost serene. If that was even the correct adjective to describe him. The way he held George looked so firm and protective.

“Dad,” David touched his father’s back to catch his attention; their eyes met and the boy smiled, “I think it suits you.”

Jack lovingly stroked the twin’s head while holding a sobbing George with his other arm. He smiled back.

Today was a calm day.

Today was a calm day.

\--

Today was not a calm day.

The ambulance was waiting in front of the old men’s house. Waiting. Ahab didn’t come alone, Quiet was also there, and so were Sigint and Dr. Clark. It was time to go, she informed Jack.

George was clinging into his arms, his brothers had already stepped out from the front door and were looking at their father. _It’s going to be alright,_

_It’s going to be alright,_

Jack repeated it in his head, like a mantra, like a prayer.

Dr. Clark pushed his back slightly as he ventured outside. Both the father and his youngest son looked around, trying to find Adam’s face. It was almost like a consolation to know he was going to be there. He and Kaz were standing near the ambulance, as Jack slowly walked towards it with his wariest look on.

“We’ll catch up with you by car.” Kaz stated, shifting his weight onto his crutch and looking at the bear man. “Don’t worry, alright?” He tried to be friendly; the friendliest he could manage while still not trusting him.

Sigint turned the engine on, Dr. Clark helped Dave and Eli on the ambulance and they sat down near Quiet, who just nodded as a greeting.

“John.” Ahab’s voice came from behind. “We are ready to go.”

\--

Inside the ambulance Eli and David were the only two talking, even though Ahab was amusedly looking at them and their shenanigans. Jack could feel George’s clinging getting harder and harder as the minutes passed; he had to be strong, for once. He had to be strong for his children.

His hands were shaking a little even though he was trying his best to calm the boy down. At some point David knelt in front of his dad, talking about whatever thing. Trying to make him relax, distracting George. Eli joined in too, the atmosphere in the vehicle shifted on a more pleasant tone, for a while.

Until it stopped moving.

Until Ahab stood up and said _we’re here_. And Jack thought this was _wrong_ , he had made a _mistake_. He wasn’t ready. _This was a mistake_. Quiet opened the ambulance’s doors and human noise filled his ears, cars, people talking, life. _It was a mistake._

His shaking worsened and he felt like throwing up there and then, just like the first time Dr. Clark showed up in front of him; he was trapped, scared.

But he heard George’s sniffles, his sweaty, small hand gripping onto him as if the man was his last defense.

 _Come on, John, let’s get down_ , he heard Ahab prompting him to get off. He held his boy, his hand grasping his head firmly. _Nobody is going to hurt you._

_Nobody is going to hurt me._

\--

A black nurse with blond, curly hair falling far off her shoulder walked closer to the man holding his child dearly, as he was sitting on the floor of the waiting room.

People.

People everywhere.

But Jack wanted to be on his best behaviour, he was doing this for his sons. The nurse knelt down,

“Hello, sir” she begun, introducing herself as Helena Dolph, “can I take your son? He needs to be prepared for the surgery.”

Jack stared at the woman, his face depicting visible fear. Ahab placed a hand on his shoulder, “She is very good.” He tried to convince him, “She’ll be an assistant during the surgery.”

Ahab loosely pointed his index at her in a playful way, trying to lighten up the conversation, “She’s also a shapeshifter. I promised you, remember?”

Jack’s head shifted from the man to the nurse and she looked stern but not menacing in any way. “Yes, don’t worry sir.” Apparently, the woman could turn into an opossum, and Jack later thought that must be the oddest animal he had ever come across.

“No! I don’t want to go!” George suddenly yelped, his father jolting a little because of the surprise and his own tense nerves. Jack groaned confusedly, the boy crying in his arms. Loudly.

The echoes of his tears resonating in his head, like the first time he had seen him lying on the floor of that horrifying white room. The screams piercing his ears and he couldn’t do anything to help his pain, he didn’t know what to do.

_He didn’t know._

Jack mumbled something and slowly tried to break contact with his son, almost forcing him to let go of his jacket. The nurse grasped the boy under his armpits, pulling him further away. The boy reached out a hand, shouting he didn’t want to go. _Dad. Dad._

Jack leaned forward, brushing his son’s tearful cheeks, hushing him with a shaky sound as if he was almost going to cry too. The nurse held the boy up and now he was out of Jack’s reach. He heard the woman talking soothingly to him as she walked away; and he was gone.

Jack wanted to scream. His head quickly turned to Ahab who was standing near him, as if the other shapeshifter could help him. And indeed, he could.

“John, you’ll be taking your examination—“ he crouched down near the bear man, who seemed to be having troubles breathing and weakly pointing his finger to where George was taken. His mind showing himself pacing in the cage, while the yelps of his boys tampered the background, the unknown. The loneliness. Memories he didn’t want to relive anymore.

Ahab’s brows knitted together in a concerned expression, rubbing both his hands on Jack’s shoulders. “It’s okay, you’re having a bad moment now.” He paused, seeing the man evidently having a crisis, “Breathe. You will see him in a bit.” The bear took a deep breath, trying to stop his trembling by shaking his head. “Good, good. You’re doing so well.”

The psychiatrist called another nurse for a wheelchair, helping Jack on it. Dr. Clark was going to perform the rest of the exams, Ahab explained, strolling him to the room they were assigned to. She was there and Sigint was too.

\--

“Buddy, I must say I like your new haircut, you know? Gives you a serious vibe.” Sigint was sitting on a chair, leaning his back onto it. He was keeping Jack focused as they were taking a blood sample.

“Maybe if you add the beard it might get _too_ serious, though.”

Jack was extremely tired, blood flowing out of his body. His head light for numerous reasons. He groaned, feeling like he needed to vomit as soon as possible. His throat flaming up in acid, nausea and dizziness trying to get the best of him.

“Clark!” Sigint suddenly got back straight up and called for the doctor, who was filing the results of his other tests while exchanging data with Ahab about John’s whole psyche situation.

“What’s wrong, John? You feel sick?”

She rushed to his side, checking how much longer the sample needed to be completed. She patted the man’s cheek, lifting his chin a little.

“Look up, look up,” her voice was firm and calm, “just a minute more and we’ll be done. All done, no more tests.” Jack whined in response, “You did very good.”

\--

Jack didn’t throw up in the end, but felt like he did. Ahab gave him a box of Calorie Mates, the same he was given the previous week; this time they were chocolate flavour and Jack only munched  the first one, half-hazily. He was almost falling asleep on his wheelchair; the three people chatting about medical things were the only thing he could clearly make out, until Sigint woke him up from his numbness.

“Hey man, look what I got you.” He leaned on the wheelchair, showing Jack an eyepatch. It was different from the one he had, round and large; this one looked more refined, in a triangular shape with small, white sewing marks all over its surface.

“You like it?”

The man asked with a grin. Jack moved his hand sluggishly, failing to catch the dangling present and Sigint had to put it in his hand. He studied the texture, running his fingers over it. A nod was his response.

His first present was an eyepatch to cover his loss. Ironic.

The man helped Jack putting it on and showed him his reflection onto a mirror. Jack frowned. That was also _him_. Another side, another person. Another _him_.

When they left the room, Ahab handed him his fake cassette tape device Adam had given him earlier, before leaving. _He might want to listen to it_ , Adam had told the psychiatrist. _It seems to calm his nerves_. Music was all Jack could hear, his eye closed, his head propped onwards. The slow but steady movement of the wheelchair.

It took him an hour and a half for all the tests but it felt like another ten years.

They stopped moving and he could hardly find the will to open his eye, but what he found in front of him gave Jack the will to live ten years more, even if it meant more tests, more doctors.

The twins were happily talking to George, sitting on Adam’s lap. Kaz was right beside him, asking Eli not to be so loud since it was a hospital. George had an eyepatch on his left eye, but he was wearing glasses. He was smiling. The nurse from before informed them, later, that the boy had been collaborative after understanding the procedure wouldn’t hurt and he would get to be home in a couple of hours; his eye all fixed, a pair of shining new glasses and his ability to see restored.

Jack still had music in his ears, but saw Adam noticing their presence, telling the children. The old man pointed at him, the boys faces bright up, except for George’s.

The boy just stared at his father, as if it was the first time he had ever seen him. His mouth was slightly agape, in surprise, the closer Dr. Clark moved his father to him. George stood up on the edge of the chair Adam was sitting on, having the old man’s grip on his hips. He reached out his small hands when his father was close enough to touch; he studied every trace, every scar showing on the man’s face.

Jack popped his earphones out.

The child’s eye was shining with commotion from behind the lenses as his lip trembled a little,

“Daddy, you’re beautiful.”

Jack’s felt his breath cut short. His little boy could see. He could see and he was safe. Smiling. Jack picked him up from Adam’s grasp and hugged the boy, snuggling on his cheek. _You were so brave, my son. So brave._

And in the loving embrace he heard George whisper, _Eli is ugly though,_ which made him chuckle a little.

“I heard you, you little shit!” Eli shouted, clenching his fists.

“Language.” Kaz reprimanded him, stomping his crutch.

“He keeps saying I’m ugly, but Dave and I are identical!” his twin was just laughing, covering his mouth with a hand.

“Dave doesn’t pick on me like you do!” George turned his head to his brother to stick out his tongue in response.

Jack could barely hold George’s exuberant body still on his lap, as this sudden relief caught his whole being in a somewhat cosy exhaustion. There were still humans around him, there was still fear in him but everything was alright.

He held George’s hand as he walked beside him, Dr. Clark pushing the wheelchair. Jack was looking at his son turning his head around, excitedly discovering every shape, every face his eyes had previously hidden from him.

_Mum, look._

_Maybe I will be fine too._

\--

_Cling, cling,_

The snapping noise of a lighter opening and closing,

_Cling, cling._

“But he’s better, so that’s fine.”

“I guess. The fact he didn’t snap anyone’s neck is already a miracle by itself.”

“Give him some credit, he’s trying.”

“I know he is.” _Cling, cling,_ “I know—Could you _stop_ doing that?”

The twins were sitting on the garage’s stairs; a secret meeting of sort. Clearing their situation out, understanding how their father was doing. It had been two weeks since they started living in this house but it was the first time they actually found each other for a tête-à-tête confrontation.

“Oh, sorry. The sound kinda relaxes me.” David bluntly replied, snapping the lighter open and closed again. Eli’s punch found its way on his brother shoulder.

“I don’t care. Where the hell did you even find that?” Eli snapped the thing from Dave’s hand, as the boy was too busy cussing against his twin.

He opened it, swirling the flintwheel a couple of times.

“It doesn’t work.” The brown haired boy stated with an almost mocking tone, “I found it here when I came for a little exploration. It seems pretty old.”

Eli kept toying with the wheel, as if he was going to make it work again. It was cold in the garage, but nothing they couldn’t handle. After all, they had spent ten years testing their bones in the wild. The old men’s car was parked in front of them, a Mercedes-Benz W126 of a dark shade of crimson. The rest of the garage was just boxes, hand tools and gardening utensils, other piled up things covered the space not occupied by the car.

The children sat there on the steps, David leaning his back onto the door behind them, letting out a sigh.

“Life is strange.” Eli said, breaking the silence. He kept staring at the lighter, the lid open, its flame extinguished many years prior.

“One day you’re dying in the forest and the other you’re living with two old men.”

“Mr. Kaz told me they wanted to give us a surname. His surname.”

David looked up to the white ceiling, his eyes wandering on the small stains constellating the surface. Eli closed the lighter and grasped it with his hand.

“Miller?”

“Yeah.”

Another long pause. They were used to silence. It was a moment to breathe, let your brain process things and find a good response. Sometimes there was none, sometimes there were too many.

“What for?”

“Documents. School.”

The blond twin turned around and stared at his brother with his most concerned expression.

“ _School_.” He repeated, trying to understand the whole concept of school and what it implied besides a big chance for grasping knowledge, far better than dusty books; contact with others, contact with other children.

“Do you think we will fit in?”

David straightened himself, standing up. He patted his brother’s head in a comforting way as Eli frowned at the gesture, but didn’t fight back.

“I’m already anxious about it for both of us. Try not to think about it too much.”

\--

“I will give you a task to do every week.”

Ahab was sitting down on the floor with Jack, handing out a workbook and a pencil case.

“This will be where you do your _homework_. Like school, alright?”

Jack’s beard had started to grow out again and he looked like a jobless man now, one of those who sleep two hours at night and eat nothing but preheated meals. In reality, he slept more than it was good for him. The slow burn of adrenaline caused by his survival instincts was slowly being washed away and a heavy load of recovery was deemed to be dealt with.

A sort of weird depression, as a natural defense mechanism for his brain, riled up in him. He was told his exams were fine, taking in account the life he had been conducting. Ahab could try to study more his case to prescribe him something, he said, something to tame his nightmares and soothe his aching brain. _It will help you show who you are again_ , Ahab had told him days ago and Jack grunted.

_Who am I?_

_I don’t know._

Jack took the workbook and opened it, as if he was hoping to find pictures or something alike.

“You need to describe things. What happens, who are you with, your thoughts on anything that passes through your mind.” Ahab explained him, “You need to give your brain something to do.”

Jack seemed constantly tired and the psychiatrist had talked to Kaz about it, since Adam wasn’t home. The old man’s response was that he always looked drained out for no reason, even though he slept most of his days away. The children tried to make him do things, even just taking a walk outside but he would came back more tired.

Rummaging with his big hands inside the pencil case, Jack took out a red marker and focused on one white sheet of paper, the first page. The way he held the marker was more like the way you hold a knife. The colour spread on the pale surface, awkward letters popping out wrinkly and imperfect, but readable.

“ _Ahab_. Well, that’s a start.” The psychiatrist chuckled lightly. Jack felt pitiful, looking at the crocked handwriting he had; his seven year old would probably write better than he did.

Jack heard the stomping of Kaz’s crutch coming closer, his first instinct – instead of acting on defense- was to quickly close the workbook and put it down on the carpet.

“Sorry Ahab, forgot my phone on the sofa.”

Kaz leaned on the couch to get his belonging,

“I hope he’s not being too hard to deal with.” The old man smirked. Kaz didn’t like anybody, or so it seemed. He seemed to barely bear Adam’s presence too and Jack didn’t understand it. It bothered him the way the man looked down on him as if he was _stupid_. As if he couldn’t understand what was happening around him. It was upsetting. Jack didn’t like himself anymore, let alone someone who so vividly shared that thought.

“He’s been great, actually. Look, he also wrote some—“

Ahab had taken the workbook and opened it on the page Jack had previously written on. The bear man jolted over to the psychiatrist, in an attempt to hide his doing from Kaz’s eyes.

“J-John, hey!”

Kaz had picked up the workbook for himself and Jack’s expression was something Ahab had never seen before; _embarrassment_. His cheeks were flushing, as he grunted, falling on all fours after Ahab shook him off.

“This is improvement.”

Kaz was going for his usual debunk of whatever good thing the situation could hold but he didn’t even try to start it off, seeing John’s face. In the past two weeks, he didn’t really have any meaningful time with this new guest, he only knew this bear grunted, shapeshifted randomly and for no apparent reason, was extremely protective of his offspring, ate and slept way too much. Not a good list, in Kaz’s book. Then again, Kaz’s book was full of not too good lists.

But this time, he just saw a very embarrassed man looking at him with a single guilty eye, as if he had done something wrong. This made Kaz reconsider him. Made him reconsider this whole thing.

“Hey, I said it’s _improvement_.”

It was uncomfortable to look at this probably thirty-something year old man and only to only be able to see a child in most of the things he did, in most of his behaviours. It made _Kaz_ uncomfortable. You usually don’t pat a grown adult man, a father of three, on the head. You usually don’t need to tell him he did a good job; and yet, Kaz did just that.

Kaz returned the workbook to the psychiatrist, reached out a hand and patted the head of the bulky man in front of him, whispering a _good job_. And John’s expression changed once again, he frowned a little and looked down, acting as if nothing had happened.

The old man limped away, to the bedroom. George was taking a nap in their guest room, David and Eli were somewhere, probably outside or in the garage. He remembered patting Dave on the head the same way he had just done with his father. The boy had helped him take the groceries inside and deserved a little boost in his morale. Kaz felt the same way, a moment ago, for that burly man who could kill them any moment.

But he didn’t. John had never tried anything, the most threatening thing he would do now was growling, and it wasn’t even _that_ scary anymore.

The man sat heavily on the bed, sighing. He thought he hated saying Adam was right but,

_I’ve really been a dick._

\--

“How are you today, John?” Adam asked the man sitting on the porch’s wooden floor, very focused on skipping trough pages of magazines. He seemed to be cutting down bits and pieces of female models, storing them to his side. Jack didn’t answer, but he usually didn’t anyway.

“He’s been doing that since three o’clock.” The voice of his husband came from his back. Kaz was sitting on a chair, sipping tea and reading the newspaper. “He just grunted towards the old magazines we were to throw out. I don’t know what’s up with it, but he’s been quiet so that’s fine by me.”

Adam looked surprised and knelt down near the bear man. “So, what are you doing?” he questioned him again, not really expecting anything from the man. Jack turned his head to take a look at the older man. Adam was smiling kindly under his moustache and it always made Jack feel at ease, somehow. It was calming, not hearing people scream at him. Just gentle smiles.

He pointed at a paper in which he had glued the face of a blond model with strong jaw and cheekbones. On top of her eyes, he had placed another model’s. The new pair were of a deep blue colour, the shape was thin and elongated. It seemed like the nose and mouth, possibly even ears, were still on hold, as they were still the same.

“Ah,” Adam touched the paper with two fingers to take a better look at it, “you’re making someone.” A nod in response.   
“Who is she?”

Jack looked down at his hands, opening and closing his palm. Once, twice.

“Is she your wife?”

He shook his head, lifting his eye to Adam once more and patting his own chest as a gesture. It was complicated to understand him, especially when David wasn’t around, but Adam was a resourceful man. It didn’t take too long to figure out what kind of relationship the bear man had with the woman.

“Your mother?”

Adam’s smile faded away in a moment as he met Jack’s lonely eye. The Russian accidentally touched a chord of Jack’s mind, so fragile it made his expression change from neutral to melancholic, almost mournful. Curiosity took over him and he dared to ask,

“Where is she?”

Adam witnessed pain shaping Jack’s face as he dropped his head down, moving a hand towards the picture. His finger painted an imaginary black line on the somehow creepy looking model he had been creating. _She is dead._

_She is dead._

Adam glanced worriedly at his husband, turning his head a little. Kaz was looking at John with a concerned expression, his newspaper rested on his lap. Adam rose a hand to place on the man’s back and he rubbed it softly. There was no place for words.  Jack knew nobody could ever say something to ease his pain, so he just resumed his cut and paste work.

He was done crying over her, there was no point anymore. She would not come back, even though she will never leave him.

She was still waiting for him, in the woods.

\--

March arrived and with it, a month spent in the warmth of the old house. Jack had learnt many things on living with humans again; he couldn’t just sleep wherever he pleased, otherwise Kaz would scold him. He couldn’t eat whenever he wanted, or Adam would scold him. His children seemed to get scolded for different things, while he was receiving the same treatment DD was.

But DD had his own house to go back to, even the horse and the chickens all had their own personal spaces to thrive in. Jack was the only one who felt enough animal to deserve a kennel, or something like that.

One late afternoon, Jack started his little exploration as soon as the house was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen where the men were conversing while making dinner. His children were all cheering and commenting a very loud movie on the TV. He now knew almost all the rooms in the house: from the front door, a few steps separated it from the big space that was the living room, almost directly connected with the kitchen and dining room. In the only corridor there were the bathroom and the old men’s bedroom on the right, Adam’s storage – he did _not_ know what was in there -, and the guest room. The final door was the garage, at the end of the corridor.

Jack reached the garage and opened the door carefully, as if to expect some kind of menace to pop out from there. His mind wandered to vampires, something he remembered he had never liked. He remembered them after a movie Kaz skipped trough brought them up one night. It scared him a lot, you could say in the most irrational way of the word, and George had to sleep in his arms all night (he had nightmares about them anyways).

He shapeshifted to his bear form after turning on the lights. The car was outside, Adam forgot to put it back in. He sniffed the air and then the floor, letting out a sneeze and an annoyed sound. A big pile of boxes were stuck at the far end of the room, so he stood up on his rear paws, showing off his two meters in height. He leaned on the boxes, sniffing them. They all smelt like dust and nothing very interesting really. Not even food.

On his descent, he accidentally knocked down a big box. A very big box. Even in his bear form, he could fit half of his body in it. It had once contained furniture, probably, but now it just made a loud metallic noise, seemingly like old kitchen utensils and probably a whole microwave hit the floor with a loud crash. The bear was startled and started looking around his surroundings, feeling guilty for snooping around.

\--

“Adam, did you hear it?”

“What?”

“I just heard a crash or something.”

“It’s the movie, don’t be paranoid.”

\--

Jack’s nose lingered inside the box and he sneezed again, and again. The large box had a strange impact on him, he had the urge to stick himself in it. This didn’t make sense, not even for him, but this couldn’t possibly be the strangest thing he had ever done in his life, at this point. His paw started rummaging the tools, shoveling them on the side. There was indeed an old microwave in the far back.

He turned into his human form and pulled it out gently. Maybe it could still work, or maybe it never worked to begin with; in his ignorance, the man placed it on his right, trying not to ruin it even more.

Jack’s hand touched the cardboard box’s edges and, in a playful way, he picked it up and raised it over himself. Easy to move, large, inviting. He slid the box over himself, his legs still popping out to the outside.

Everything was dark now, cosy and protected. This box made him feel safe without the need of being a bear. Without the need of becoming Ishmael.

In the box, he felt like Jack could still exist, somewhere.

He knew this was absurd, almost silly, but he couldn’t feel happier inside this closed space. Maybe captivity had molded his experience of open spaces, and now confined ones were appealing to his senses.

His legs disappeared inside the box too.

\--

“Kids, where’s your dad?”

Kaz asked while he managed not to fall as George almost jumped on him, wanting to get picked up.

“No idea.” Eli shrugged. “Wasn’t he with you two in the kitchen?” David added, rising an eyebrow.

“Dinner’s almost ready, I was just gathering you guys.” He explained, telling George to behave and not to jump on him like that again, even though he kept holding the boy the best he could with his arm.

Adam, in the meanwhile, had just peeked into the guest room to check if John was there. How a man like that could just sneak in this house without anyone noticing was just a complete mystery to him. He called out _John_ various times, even checking in his own storage room.

Then, a pale light coming from the semi open garage door caught his attention. Adam hurried to the garage, somehow fearing something bad had happened but the room was empty.

The bear had knocked down a couple of boxes, all their old utensils were scattered on the floor, and yet the microwave was staying still on its little toes on the side of the room.

“Kaz!” Adam shouted, walking in the room trying not to step on the mess.

“Can you come here for a moment?”

Adam put his hands on his hips and sighed. He was a very patient man – or better, he had become a patient man, but sometimes the mess this family created was more than he could clean up.

Kaz’s limping came after George’s footsteps.

“Grandpa, where’s dad? Did you find him?” he adjusted his glasses. There was no eyepatch on the boy’s face anymore and he could see just fine on the left one now, which made him extremely adventurous compared to how he used to behave.  

“I found a mess.”

“What the hell happened here?”

Kaz exclaimed, as the boy turned into a cub and bouncily stomped on a pan.

“George.” The Russian reprimanded him with a firm tone, as the cub whined an apology, rising a paw from the pan. His nose spotted something, his father’s scent filled the room.

He placed his muzzle down to the floor, walking over to the big box sitting oddly undisturbed in the garage. This was where the scent came from. The little bear stood up and tried to push it off, yelping towards the old men before turning back into a boy.

“Dad’s here!”

Kaz limped over, muttering a _what_.

George raised an edge of the box, sneaking in. His charmed voice came from inside, accompanied with a giggle.

“Dad is asleep in the box!”

\--

It was almost midnight when the two old men laid down in bed. Adam was listening to Kaz’s complaints about the money spent for the psychiatrist and how they were going to have school for three children in their plans soon. The younger man’s voice was actually more of a hum since he was resting close to his husband’s face. Adam’s fingers were toying with a lock of Kaz’s graying hair.

“Are you even listening?” he sighed with half a smile shaping his lips.

“I’m enjoying your little character developpment with our guests.” Adam purred tiredly, his eyes half closed in his cat-like smile, responding to his husband’s.

Kaz huffed, looking to his side.

“Well, I wasn’t very nice at first, I suppose.”

“You are never _very nice at first_.”

He frowned at Adam’s amused expression.

“You aren’t either.”

“I never said I am, but at least I never tried to hit on every breathing thing.”

Kaz’s response was frowning more and turn on his back, facing the ceiling. Adam slouched over, propping himself up with an arm and resting his free hand on the man’s chest.

“You’re a warm man, deep down. They just need time to know you.” He leaned down to give a light kiss on Kaz’s lips, his moustache tingling the man just a little, “I needed time to know you, and now look at me.”

“Sad and miserable?” Kaz smirked, releasing his brows in a more relaxed expression.

“Absolutely.” Adam heard the blond man snicker, as he rose a hand to the Russian’s face to put a lock of hair behind his ear.

“I must say, if I don’t think about money—“, Adam whispered a _which is never_ , “I’m somehow, _very_ vaguely,” a pause, “glad we took them in.”

“Very vaguely.”

“Yes.”

“You’re just happy they’re all going to get your surname, aren’t you?”

Kaz closed his eyes in a prideful expression, his cheeks flushing a little.

“Kinda.”

\--

_School corridors, I’m laughing with someone, a face I don’t recognise. It’s blurred, they seem older than I am. We are having fun._

_I have a school bag hanging from my right hand, I was probably leaving._

_There is the usual ruckus you hear in a school, words echoing in the air, we’re talking about a test._

_A glimpse, my eyes bat once and the corridor lights start going out, they are coming towards us. The only neon left is above me; I’m alone in the corridor now._

_I turn around, I am in my room. I just got out from the shower and I have my home clothes on, a towel hanging from my shoulders. Mum, I shout, Mum,_

_Can I go out tonight?_

_I lean my head out from the room’s door, to the corridor. The stairs lead to darkness, void._

_Cut._

_I wake up._

_\--_

Jack woke up in the guest room, David curled up on his right, George on his left and Eli close to his baby brother. It’s warm in the room, everyone is asleep. He could hear David snore a little.

His eye closed and opened steadily, looking at the ceiling. There was no sound interrupting the night, the clock stated 4am. His breathing was calm.

_Are these memories?_

_Did they really happen?_

His mother was there in the dream in a way, but it wasn’t painful. It was heartwarming, like a familiar sight, a comforting hug.

_Who was I talking to?_

_Was the test difficult?_

_Did I ever take it?_

_Where did I want to go that night?_

Jack slowly sat up, trying to sneak out from the bed without his children noticing. Even though he was a heavy man – or at least, he was finally becoming the heavy man he was supposed to be-, he managed to slip away among the sheets and the duvet, walking out.

The house was silent and he slugged his feet across the corridor, until he reached the living room. Near the library, they had placed his little house, the cardboard box. It was flipped on one of the long sides, so he could rest in it with his legs in the open. Jack rolled out on the ground the warm pile sheet Adam had put inside it, like a mattress of sort. He laid down, head on the pillow resting inside of the box. Near him, his teddy bear and his music.

One of the sides had his weird model project hanging thanks to some duct tape. He reached out a hand, touching the woman’s face. He wished he could have just one picture. Just one.

“Memories,” he whispered, brushing his fingers on the paper.

He closed his eye, hoping that when he’d open it, the woman could really resemble his mother. It didn’t.

“I miss you.”

He wasn’t upset, that night.

He was sad.

All of a sudden, he missed everyone.

\--

Six in the morning, the beeping of the alarm clock woke Kaz up from his peaceful slumber. That meant his old and damaged joints rose from their numbness to resume their usual job, aching. His weak arm, the right one, was resting curled up close to his torso. He felt Adam’s body right behind his back as he stretched his left arm out to snooze the alarm off.

Kaz rested on his back, letting out a sigh and Adam curled himself more under the blankets. He glanced over to his husband, who usually didn’t sleep in too late in the morning but surely wasn’t an early bird like he was.

“Hey,” Kaz peeked under the duvet, only hearing a sleepy mumble in response, “are you gonna sleep some more?” he softly asked, placing a hand on one of the man’s hips while roaming under the sheets. He got another murmur.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He kissed the man’s head before getting up, slowly, but steadily. His leg and arm had him wake up early every day just so that he could do all his things with his own pace; it was annoying, but at least nobody was rushing him.

He got up after wearing a dark green sweater he caught at the edge of the bed, limping heavily towards the door. He could walk without his crutch or a walking stick, but the doctors always advised him not to. Most of the times, he was just too hardheaded to listen to doctors, anyway.

It had been a couple of days since he stopped locking the bedroom door; his heart made him question _what if the children needed them in the middle of the night_. And deep down, even a _what if John needs help in the middle of the night_ was starting to bother him.

Kaz reached the bathroom where he did his usual morning routine, one of which was tying his hair back into a ponytail. He yawned and looked in the mirror. His eyes were becoming paler and paler since the incident, many years ago. He could still see decently enough but they had become very sensible to light, hence the sunglasses.

As the old man limped over to the kitchen and turned on the light, he heard rustling coming from the living room. He froze up. _Fuck_. His first thoughts were robbers but, honestly, for how of a silly dog DD might be, he would have surely barked at some point. Then his second thought came, which was more rational; one of the children must have woken up for some reason.

He gradually walked over to the living room, and his third thought came in.

_It’s the dad, isn’t it._

The artificial but warm light from the kitchen shone weakly from behind his back and lined the figure of the man huddled up on the floor, half hidden by the box. Kaz took a deep, relieved breath, as it seemed there was nothing to fear. And yet, he wondered why the bear would prefer sleeping alone in his box at night, more than cuddling with his sons in a cosy bed. Nervousness made Kaz a little shaky on his already awkward legs, approaching the figure on the floor; _how would he react?_ At worst, the old man thought, he would have to face a real bear.

Honestly, if Adam wasn’t scared of that why should he.

Then he remembered Adam wasn’t a good basis for comparison.

John’s curled up position communicated Kaz how cold he must have been. It was such a defenseless sight. The old man knelt down with a huff and he saw John shuffle a little in his box, as if he had just been woken up. Sniffing noises came right after, since he probably couldn’t see very well in the dark and he had to rely on his sense of smell.

Kaz’s hand patted the man’s hip, just a little, accompanying the gesture with a _hey, big guy_.

“What are you doing here, all alone?”

He asked in a quiet tone, not really expecting any reply. The bear popped out from the inside of the box with a rigid and drowsy movement. He was shaking a little because of the cold, but nothing more that would rise any particular concern.

“It’s cold here, what’s with the big idea, uh?”

Jack saw the old man’s hand coming to pat him on the head. Kaz still treated him as if he was kind of dumb, but there had been some changes; the fact he didn’t seem so scared and mistrusting anymore made Jack less scared and mistrusting of him. A mutual exchange. He looked at Kaz getting on his feet again by holding a hand out to the wall, grunting in pain because of the movement.

“Come, you’ll have breakfast with me.” He started limping over to kitchen, turning back once, patting his thigh. “Come on, hurry up or no breakfast at all.”

\--

Jack was sitting on a chair, the kitchen’s TV was on but the volume was barely audible. The morning news were on, the woman on the screen had a light green tailleur with prominent shoulder pads, which seemed a very popular fashion trend in any channel Jack might happen to watch. Milk was being warmed up on the stove and Kaz had taken out some pills for him, orange marmalade and biscuits.

“You’re a bear, right? I’m sure you’d love some honey.”

The man presented Jack a bowl of warm milk and honey, later placing the whole jar in front of him. It was a normal glass jar with bees printed over the acacia honey name.

“You can put it on the biscuits too if you want.”

Jack had a puzzled face; his usual breakfasts were deep in the morning and usually consisted in a big mix with lunch, so he wasn’t sure about this all. He was just starting to get used to have an actual meal schedule.

He took the bowl – not a mug, because Kaz knew this guy needed a big portion of everything, and he drunk it all up in a chug. It was warm, sweet. It travelled to his stomach waking him up, getting his body back on its feet. _This is so good_ , Jack found himself thinking.

“Wow, slow down papa bear. It’s not going anywhere.” Kaz let out a small chuckle at the sight of the other man cleaning off his beard from the milk and squeezing his eyes shut as if he was trying to kill off a yawn. He wasn’t wearing his eyepatch and when he went back to stare at Kaz, both his eyes were fixed on him. John seemed uncomfortable in touching things in the house, as he felt he was invading another house, touching another property, bothering other people’s lives.

So he kept staring in the hope Kaz would understand his need for some sort of permission, but the man was too busy taking his pills with a glass of water. Jack whimpered out of the blue, to catch his attention.

The old man turned to the bear, a confused look on his face as he asked _what?_ with the tone you’d ask your dog.

“What is it?” he repeated, Jack side eyed the food on the table and Kaz frowned, more confused than before. “You can eat that, you know.”

Jack kept staring at the old man as he reached out a hand and took a biscuit. His eyes didn’t move even when he took a first bite. And a second. Kaz sighed in resignation and moved the whole plate near the man,

“There.”

Finally, Jack moved his gaze to the plate itself and felt like he was allowed to eat his breakfast. Kaz shook his head a little and huffed, a small smile showing on his lips.

\--

_Ahab_

_George David Eli G G G_

_Adam adam ska adamska      Kaz Kazu hira kazuhira_

_Dog Movies Food             bad vampire movies_

_New NEW clothes  cute     good_

_Like      I like honey_

_Box_

_Safe_

_Mum_

\--

_Friend_

Jack wrote with a pen at the beginning of a new page. He was studying the word with his inquisitive eye, while resting on the sofa for the first time in a month and a half. His knees were close to his chest to hold the workbook up. George was reading, or better, whispering out loud what he was reading, from a comic book called _The Amazing Spiderman_. Sometimes he’d turn around to show his dad some _cool fights_. They were indeed impressive drawings, he thought.

Jack remembered comics, vaguely. He had always preferred books better, though.

The twins were using the only computer in the house, sitting in the eastern part of the living room. They were looking up “school things”, they said. Jack wasn’t too worried about school for now; it was a problem for later. They kept their voices low, David taking notes on a small piece of paper while Eli typed or clicked. Jack thought the way they learnt how to operate a computer that fast was really surprising, but they were very clever boys so he kind of expected it.

Adam was knitting something, a sweater probably, as he was sitting at the other end of the sofa. Kaz had left for town an hour prior to buy groceries and do some things at the hospital for himself.

_Friend_

Adam had told him earlier, a friend would come for dinner. She, a woman, was very nice and there was nothing to worry about. She was older, he was told, like a real grandma. So Jack thought the friend would be a very old lady with a caring smile. She would maybe be less grumpy than Kaz and less odd than Adam, _maybe_.

She was a human, but Adam and Kaz were also humans. And they were her friends.

Nothing bad will happen, nothing bad.

It’s alright.

 _Friend_ will be nice.

Jack started sketching something, shapes resembling a face. It wasn’t pretty, it looked more like a drawing of an elementary school child, but he was trying to make out an idea for the mysterious woman. The workbook started to fill up with words, sketches or pictures he’d find in magazines. It seemed the way he used the space in the book was warped, sometimes he would skip pages and just write in the white emptiness before turning to the next. He didn’t like showing it to anyone besides Ahab, especially to his children.

He was starting to understand he had lost much more than his personality and memories. He had lost the ability to communicate on a general basis and starting from scratch again was frustrating and embarrassing.

Adam asked the twins the time and hopped on his feet, diligently taking his phone from the nearby coffee table and tapping on it as he walked off to the kitchen. Jack followed him with his eye and turned back to his sketch.

\--

His drawing was wrong. His predictions were wrong.

Kaz had been cooking for a while and Adam had set up the dining table after soliciting the bear family to go and take a shower before their guest would get there.

Jack had been oddly calm and this created mixed feelings in his sons. He helped George dry his hair and showered rather quickly after his children were done. No complaints, no grunts, no hostility or nervousness.

Adam made him wear a black sweater with a tighter fit and said that should be his _guest sweater_ ; his pants were still very loose so he could move easily and wore long black socks. Jack usually never had shoes on unless he had to go outside, anyway, but that wasn’t an issue.

David had helped him brushing his hair and beard, which was now starting to get fuller but well groomed. His hair, much like his son’s, would start to flop on the side a little, giving him a gentle tone to his sharp facial features. He stared at himself in the mirror, he resembled a human being. His scars were visible now, but his face wasn’t just skin and bones anymore; he could fake being normal, just a regular father. He could pull it off, at least physically, he thought.

So he wanted to play a game and play the role.

Adam snorted, apologizing afterwards, as he saw Jack trying to walk in the most upright way he could muster.

“He’s trying _something_ , that’s for sure.” Eli said, staring at his dad holding out a hand to the Russian for a handshake.

“Did he just shake grandpa’s hand?” George whispered in an excited tone.

And then a motorcycle roared outside of the main entrance before cutting off its engine.

The noise came so suddenly Jack was alerted, looking towards its whereabouts as he was shaking Kaz’s hand this time – to the old man’s utmost confusion.

“She’s here.” Adam announced, happily walking to the door. He could hear DD’s enthusiastic barks and her friend’s voice talking to the animal. The woman chitchatted for a minute on the doorway with the Russian, before entering and exclaiming to the house,

“Why did you two disappear for more than a month?” she sounded annoyed but also kind of amused by the situation, as if she was intrigued by the two men’s motivations.

Kaz replied with a shout back from the kitchen,

“We were busy.”

Jack felt already uneasy, hearing people talking so loudly. But he was going to shake this old woman’s hand like a normal person. He was okay. Kaz walked out from the room, and Jack could hear the three humans talk and laugh.

“Eva, I want you to meet someone. Or well, there are a few people you should meet.”

“A big party, I see.”

“It’s not a party” Kaz huffed, “They live here now.”

The voices of his children reached his ears, as they obviously greeted the guest in a shy and wary way. Adam’s voice echoed in Jack’s head as he was reaching out his handshake hand to the air,

_Eva, these are George, Eli and David. Children, this is Eva, our friend._

Eli’s comments on how fancy the dress-up of the woman was mixed with David’s polite apologies for his twin’s behaviour. George just straight up asked how old she was.

Jack felt cold sweat down his spine. _It’s just friend, she is being good with your children._

_You’re acting, you can do it,_

Jack let out a hopeless, quite whine, alone in the kitchen.

A voice he hadn’t heard in weeks riled up in him,

_What if,_

Big Boss murmured.

_Boy,_

He retrieved his hand, hearing the two old men explaining the situation. Who were these children, why they were there. He heard laughs and giggles.

_You can fake all you want,_

_You will never be a human again._

\--

“You got busy in this half a month, my boys. Aren’t you a little too old for children, though?”

Eva laughed. She wore a leather jacket and an over the knee black dress, with black pantyhose and black boots. She had biker goggles hanging from her neck. Her hair was tied up, almost all white by now, and her make up was vivid with mostly dark shades but the lips, a good, strong red.

She didn’t look almost seventy. In comparison the couple looked way older than her.

“They aren’t _our_ kids, Eva.” Kaz cut her bluntly.

“Well, that’s a pity. They’re adorable.” She smiled and patted George’s head. “Look how cute your glasses are.”

“They’re new, you know!” the little cub used both of his hands to adjust them. “I was almost blind before!”

Eva knitted her brows, in a worried expression.

“Please, Ma’am, don’t be afraid of our father.” David had an odd tone of voice, as if he was begging the woman for mercy on their dad, who had been behaving for a couple of weeks up to now.

“Child, don’t call me ma’am. You can call me big mama if you want. You’re no adult, there’s not reason for such sweet-talk.” She took two steps closer to the brown haired twin and patted his cheek, as he whispered _big mama_ under his breath. Eli snorted, arms crossed, looking directly at the woman as if he wanted to challenge her.

And she accepted the challenge.

“So, where is this bear man?”

\--

Eli accompanied the stranger and Adam to the kitchen, where his father was supposed to be, unless he had already fled somewhere to hide.

But he looked fine, Adam reassured Eva. He looked calm.

The old man entered the kitchen, calling out the name _John_. And John was there, standing at the edge of the kitchen, where the furniture met in a corner. He did not look fine.

“John? John, what’s wrong?” Adam uttered, worry was clearly rising in his voice and then the woman spoke,

“Is he alright?”

And Jack lifted his face, staring at the new human in the room. She wasn’t like his predictions at all. She wasn’t like he thought she’d be.

_They tricked you._

_No, no, she’s just different. She’s not going to hurt me._

_They tricked you, silly boy._

Jack’s eye was fiercely looking straight to Eva and he strenuously tried to suffocate his vicious growls. _I wanted to shake hands, I wanted to pretend,_

_I wanted to pretend,_

_Let me act, let me play a role,_

_She is just different._

Jack felt the need to shapeshift and he got angry at himself for being so weak; for being so irrational. _He was getting better, wasn’t he?_ He was doing so well. But now paranoia is back and Big Boss is waiting; release Ishmael. He’s been asleep for so long. Let him go.

Jack didn’t notice his son slipping through the two adults to hold his hand.

“Dad, this is Eva. She is Mr. Kaz and Mr. Adam’s friend. You know, she’s super old.”

The boy presented everything to his father as if he wasn’t overthinking whether to attack the human or not. He talked to him as if he was having a normal conversation. His green eyes were calmly gazing back to his father’s panicked one.

Jack felt his hands shake a bit when Eva let out an irreverent sigh,

“ _Super old_. What kind of cheeky kid are you?”

And he heard the heels of her boots getting closer. And she was in front of him, but he wasn’t growling. His son was firmly grasping his hand, everything was fine. Adam smiled reassuringly behind the woman’s shoulder, mimicking the handshake gesture he had previously tested on the old couple.

His eye met the woman’s face again, this time his expression was tamer, scared, while hers was proud and intrigued. She held out a hand first and Jack’s first instinct prevailed, as he tried to sniff her scent but, at the same time, he mustered his strength to lean his own hand into the shake. She had a firm grip, her hand was soft and she wore a red shade of nail polish.

Her perfume was equally powerful and eccentric, but very pleasant. She wasn’t like Jack imagined, but it was okay. She was just different.

Eva grinned and shook their hands eagerly, before releasing the hold and putting a finger under his chin, propping his head up a little. This immediately alerted both the father _and_ the son.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eli shouted, as Jack froze up, staring at the woman’s amused eyes. She turned to Adam, chuckling.

“He’s handsome.” Eva released the man, as he batted his lashes in confusion.

“Come on, let him be.”

“I am _appreciating_ , Adam.”

And Adam groaned, rolling his eyes.

“John, let’s go to the living room, alright? You can rest in your box until dinner.” The man prompted him as he almost pushed Eva out, _he could be your son, Eva_. _What box? Don’t change the subject._

Eli huffed, pulling his dad by the hand. Jack was puzzled by whatever had just happened and the woman’s words.

_Handsome._

\--

At first, Eva seemed a loud and rather shallow woman, but it was just the impression she wanted to give out. During the night she swiftly asked the family about their past, making it look like a lighthearted topic to converse about, which helped the children ease in her presence. Her behaviour was very different compared to the two old men. She would pet, touch and pick up the children whenever she wanted, and they didn’t really complain since she was the very first woman to be so intimate with them.

The odd was when she would try to show affection to Jack.

He would just stiffen up, at which Eva would drop whatever she was doing to smile at him and move on. She tried to talk to him but for whatever progress he had done in just one month and a half, he still wouldn’t look at her in the face most of the times, let alone reply in any way.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me?”

She made a whiny tone, while leaning towards him in a very jokingly dramatic way. She was sitting on the ground like Jack was, but he was looking through his usual magazines, head down.

“He doesn’t talk to anybody, Eva, it’s nothing personal.” Kaz butted in the conversation, while sitting on the sofa near his companion, relaxing after dinner.

“Shut up, Miller. I want him to reply, not you.”

Adam snorted softly, _Miller_ , he repeated.

George sluggishly moved to his father, hugging the man’s neck from behind while yawning. _I’m sleepy_ , he mumbled. It seemed like Jack had just woken up from an idle state, because his face suddenly lighted up, turning to look to his son. He took the boy in his arms and made him rest on his lap. The man took off George’s glasses so they wouldn't break or get ruined, handing them to Adam, as he looked at him straight in the face.

“You are such an odd man.”

Eva commented upon the scene, moving her hand towards Jack’s face to annoyingly move a lock of hair. The man turned to her, this time. His face _did_ look annoyed, indeed.

“Eva, _please_ don’t piss him off.” Kaz’s voice came in to remind her he was an instable bear shapeshifter.

Jack let out a sniff of warning towards the woman and she just chuckled back.

“Well, at least you’re looking at me now.”

Jack frowned and wasn’t quick enough to avoid the woman poking his nose. He curled it, closing his eye, and sniffed again. _That was funny_ , Jack thought. He inquisitively moved his head on the side.

“What are you thinking?” She asked.

Jack’s eye wandered on his right side and then he went back down, looking at the floor. This time he was seemingly searching for something. He took his workbook from the ground and shyly looked inside, staring at his own ugly drawings.

His attention moved from the sketches to the woman to the old men on the sofa. George was asleep in his lap already, so he wouldn’t notice. The twins were once again on the computer, sometimes you could hear them fight over things, especially because they were finishing their daily internet hour Kaz had gently granted them.

Jack handed the workbook to Adam. He studied the page full of human like figures, possibly women but there weren’t many gender specific traits to say it in absolutes. The sketches looked full of other scribbles in them, wrinkles probably.

“Who are they?” Kaz wondered, peeking over to see the pages.

“Eva?” Adam dared to say. She looked extremely surprised at the mere thought of being drawn by someone.

Jack nodded, his frown was intense and his cheeks a little red.

“You drew me?” She exclaimed in amazement, taking the workbook from the Russian’s hands.

“These are so bad.” She stated, looking at Jack already dropping any interest in communicating for the rest of the night. But Eva took one of his hands and put the workbook in it.

“You have to exercise. Come on, draw the real thing.”

Adam passed a hand on his face sighing and Kaz just let out a big laugh. Jack sat there, looking at the page.

“Come on, boy. We don’t have all night! If you want to get better, you gotta try at least, right?”

The man lifted his eye to meet the woman’s. She was smiling.

_Friend._

_Yes, I want to get better._

\--

_How many things can you learn in a month? In four months? Six? A year?_

Many, if your memories start to come back, sprouting at night like spring buds, waking you up. Feeling sad, feeling nostalgic, feeling real. And there you see yourself playing at a lake with your childhood friends; your eight years old self overjoyed by a toy gun you received as a present. Your mother and her friends putting on Christmas decorations. You remember yourself studying, crying at movies, laughing at jokes.

You remember what you loved, what you hated, what your hobbies were and what your mother did as a job. You remember her face now, and sometimes the smell of flowers remind you of her scent. Memories of you fighting with her and moping for three days. Her profile smoking a cigar, your face hiding while smoking her cigars.

Roaming the forest as a cub, under her supervision; and you hurt yourself on a paw and you cry so much she has to hurry home. She is scared but you know everything will be alright because she’s there, she will always be there.

And when she whispers _I love you Jack_ in your dreams, she’s not in a cold, dark cage.

She is kissing you goodnight. She is holding you after you whished her happy birthday. She’s cradling your five years old body in her arms, and it’s all fine.

And when you reply _I love you mum_ in your dreams, you hear your voice. Your boyish voice, as it was finally starting to grow deeper. It sounds good, sounds natural. It sounds like you.

All of your memories come back, even the ones where you were in tragedy, even when you thought your life would end because of a bad experience, bad company, bad feelings. Nothing seems bad to your single, lonely eye anymore.

Jack lives in the past, he is real there. He is happy, there.

He is fine.

\--

Six months had passed and Jack kept his hair tied in a ponytail most of the times, it was easier to handle. He worked hard, writing every day to keep his mind occupied. Ahab would show him the progress he had done already, seeing how he could write very neat upper cases letters now.

The psychiatrist also prescribed him specific medications as a mood stabiliser, in April. Jack was cautious at first, he wouldn’t want to take them for his paranoia of getting drugged or sedated. Kaz showed him how many pills he had to take for his condition and that convinced the man to give it a try.

He didn’t immediately feel any change but soon his children would whisper to him how glad they were he was being more active, taking strolls outside with them, playing with the dog. He had started helping with houseworks, under Adam’s supervision and the two old men would actually compliment him for doing a god job.

They said he started smiling, not too much, but he did.

Eva came over often and she would always touch him too much whenever she talked to him. Her visits always came with presents, usually clothes, for the whole family. He never understood why she had bought him a leather jacket too, but whenever he’d decide to wear it she would look extremely happy. So, he opted on wearing it every time the old lady would visit.

In May, when George was explaining him the plot of one of his comic books, showing a good representation with his dolls, Jack noticed how the boy had grown taller. He had tried to hold him in the middle of his speech, confusing him. George felt bigger, in every aspect. When sitting on his lap, his head would reach the man’s shoulder and his body felt plumper.

George giggled in his dad’s odd hug, squishing Jack’s cheeks with his hands. _You’re softer, dad_ , he said with a smile, _I like that. It’s better when you cuddle me._ Jack had finally started to look healthy and he would feel the need to run outside and get some exercise done to actually keep some muscle on; you never knew. But he got some weight on, making him look bulky the way he should have always been. It was good.

The twins looked in good shape and when Jack placed his youngest son near the other two, they were almost – almost – the same height. All the three of them. He was shocked at the sight.

In June, David had started describing him what school would be to them and how they needed to go, now that they had documents made and a surname. School would start in September, the boy had told him. _Will you be alright?_

Jack slowly held his son, such a diligent and serious child. David hugged the man in response, closing his eyes. His head rested on his father’s shoulder and his fist gripped onto his shirt.

_Yes._

Jack softly whispered to him. And when Dave rose his head to look at the man, he was wearing a small smile on his lips, his persona was finally looking like the one of a father, someone you could rely on. The boy was touched in a way he didn’t expect to be, dropping his look down and as his eyes filled with tears he tried to clean them out nonchalantly with two fingers.

His father kept smiling even though his brows knit in concern. He brushed a hand on his son’s cheek and Dave sniffed, his trembling voice saying _I’m good dad, I just,_

Jack patted his back, comforting the child. His tears were out of stress and relief, as he kept all of his anxiety inside.

Jack was becoming good in the art of acting.

\--

September came, the twins were already waiting at the door for their little brother and Adam. Eli had his hair in a ponytail, much like Kaz’s, wearing a white sweater under a black jacket and high waist jeans, while his brother had a turtleneck with a grey wolf on the centre and dark jeans. Backpacks ready, nervousness in their eyes.

George came in all excited in a dark blue button shirt and black shorts, while wearing striped socks over his brown shoes. Adam asked him to stay still as he helped the boy wear his jacket and put on the schoolbag.

“Say goodbye to your father before leaving.” The old man gestured to the living room with his head. The twins felt their heart fall, walking in the room to find their father in the box, resting. Eli knelt down, patting the man to his senses.

“Dad, we are going.”

The man flinched, emerging from his kennel. He looked tired, but took Eli with an arm and David with the other, kissing their cheeks.

“Daddy!” George ran to him to give the man a kiss on the nose. “I’ll tell you all about school when I’m back!” His small arms wrapped around his father’s neck and Jack grunted in response. He was too calm, his older brothers thought. But they had to leave and George waved a bye bye, Jack waved back. Adam nodded _a see you later_.

The door closed.

Kaz was out feeding the chickens and Jack was alone in the house.

The car’s noise faded away in minutes, as he sat still in the room. His eye looking down at his hands. He opened his palm and closed it back, slowly, as if he was trying to remember how he used to feel reality.

He stood up, going to their bedroom. The kids had started to put posters on the walls and toys were all around the room. He plopped on the floor, reaching under the bed among magazines and books, to take out a pair of black sports shoes. Moments after, he was on the porch wearing them while sitting on a step of the small set of stairs.

“Going for a walk?” Kaz asked, as he was limping back to the front door.

He got a grunt for a reply as the man struggled on tying a knot. The (still) blond man sighed and put his good knee down on the ground, batting the shapeshifter’s hands away. _I’ll do it, I’ll do it_. He noticed Jack’s face was a little different, a little more tired, a little more faded. But he nodded in a thankful gesture and helped Kaz stand up on his feet when the shoes were all done.

“The kids will be back by four, I think. Don’t worry too much, okay?”

Another nod and Kaz wondered the progress the man had made in all these months; amazing in a way, odd in another. His behaviour was tamer now, for the most part, and whenever he felt threatened by someone he’d mildly growl and look at Kaz and Adam. He had learnt that if the humans didn’t freak out, there was no actual danger. And he trusted them, now.

John shapeshifted into his bear form, letting Kaz scratch him on the side of his head.

“No, no—“ The bear was on his rear paws and had just taken the old man into a literal bear hug, of which Kaz wasn’t too fond of. His face was buried into the animal’s fur as he felt his big nose sniffing his head.

“John,” he emerged, vividly patting the bear’s chest, and the animal let him go, “Now I have all your fur on my clothes.” Kaz tried to regain his balance and lightly hit the big bear on a calf with his crutch.

The animal grumbled happily, before starting his slow walk in the woods. _Stay safe_ , he heard Kaz shout behind him.

_This is acting._

\--

George cried in the car when he had realised neither his brothers nor grandpa Adam were going to be with him in class. A weird boy with long, black hair spoke to him during recess, because George looked alone and he was also a shapeshifter. He could turn into a bat, and George thought that was super cool. Like Batman.

Eli found out there were children as troubled as he was in his class, not counting his brother; or maybe he should count him. The blond twin found out his deskmate had many scars on his face and curly, red hair to hide them. He had brought a gasmask to school, _so people don’t bother me_ , he said. Eli laughed. _I don’t like when people bother me either. But I try to punch them the fuck off._

He was just filling his mouth with more made up things than reality, but the kid didn’t laugh or do anything in particular at that, which made Eli a little uncomfortable. _You should punch some people for me_. The child stated, staring at him. He introduced himself as Tretij.

David didn’t have much luck. He didn’t feel like talking and his deskmate walked away as soon as the bell rang. At the end of their last break, though, the girl sitting behind him poked his back, so he’d turn around. She was Asian, long black hair tied in a ponytail and a big, curious smile on her face. _You’re a shapeshifter, right?_ David nodded. _That’s amazing! What’s your animal?_

 _Bear._ He felt his cheeks become warmer because of embarrassment. _That’s cute!_ She giggled. _Bears are so fluffy. I’m Mei Ling, nice to meet you!_

David awkwardly let out his hand for a handshake, just because he remembered his father doing that. The girl giggled again, looking at the hand in a puzzled way before shaking it back.

School was going to be alright.

\--

Pictures of the children and John started to pop up in frames on the house furniture, and Jack would stare at them in wonder. It was Christmas day and he loved the idea of a tree lighted up and red sweaters made by Adam, and cookies and presents.

Jack remembered his Christmas as a boy as he stared at the picture framed on the wall over his box. He was sitting on the sofa there, George holding a table game in his hands as he looked to his right. John, in the picture, was also avoiding the camera’s focus; but he looked human, he looked like a person. His clothes were nice, his hair was clean and well groomed just like his beard. His stance was good and the way he held his son was natural.

He took the photo from the wall.

In the kitchen, Kaz was looking at his phone with a glass of eggnog near him and Adam was watching the news on the small TV, resting his hand in his husband’s.

Of course the big man could sneak in there without the old couple really noticing, at which point they just flinched seeing the presence.

“Dear, you scared us.” Adam chuckled, gazing at the man moving a chair, questioning whether sitting down. He decided he shouldn’t, so he pushed the chair back in and sat on the floor in the middle of the two men. He handed out the picture to Kaz.

“What is it? You don’t like it?” he asked, patting the shapeshifter’s shoulder. Jack looked back at Adam, pointing a finger.

“Adam.”

The Russian’s face, for the first time since they had gotten there, was truly shocked. The voice that came out from John wasn’t like he had imagined, it was low and raspy but warm in an inexplicable way.

“What did you say?” Adam questioned him to see if his mind hadn’t just tricked him somehow; and he saw the shapeshifter move his finger to his partner.

“Kaz.”

Kaz removed his sunglasses to look at the man better, his eyes as big as they could be. Jack moved his hand up to touch the photo.

“John,” he started and immediately paused, his brain feeling ready to speak but his mouth was slow still, “He, He thanks you.”

He closed his hand in a fist and looked down, trying to continue since the sentence sounded quite bizarre. He wasn’t some kind of Tarzan boy. His head shook hard before he resumed,

“I am thankful. Thank you.”

_John thanks you._

Adam and Kaz shot a look to each other, and Adam smiled brightly at him, brushing his cheek with a hand.

“You are welcome.”

Kaz placed a hand on his shoulder, smirking.

“No problem, buddy.”

_John is happy now._

_Jack is happy in his memories._

\--

He held Eli high on his shoulders, balancing the boy so he wouldn’t fall.

It was New Year ’s Eve’s party; all the people they knew were there. Even Ahab and Quiet were invited, Jane and Sigint. Eva was talking with Adam and Kaz was near the black man, getting ready to shoot some Roman candles.

George was having the time of his life with his brother and Ahab, writing things in mid-air with sparklers.

Jane shouted for everyone’s attention and the countdown began.

_Ten,_

_Nine,_

_Eight,_

_Seven,_

_Six,_

_Five,_

_Four,_

_Three,_

_Two,_

_One._

Sigint let the fireworks go, different colours popped from the candles. Someone popped a bottle of sparkling wine as they started wishing each other’s happy new year.

The fireworks from town were far, but still pretty close to have a good view in the night sky.

Jack grabbed Eli’s hand, as they were dangling down close to the man’s face.

“Happy new year, Eli.”

Eli stared at the fireworks and his mouth lifted upwards, a big grin popping on his face as tears were forming in his eyes.

“Happy new year, dad.”


	9. So Long, Lonesome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song's title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq681aDM53U  
> For the ending, please listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpqa5Wch_Zc  
> If you want, I made a playlist with all the songs for this fanfiction and other ones I found appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHX1dU3f8qU&list=PL6Mc9QLdUUTRKTN8A5qZKcgMo6qittDJg&index=1
> 
> The story is over, but next chapter is something else.

September.

The children’s first day of school.

“Where have you been?” Adam’s shocked look met John’s dirty figure, his clothes all ruined. Blood was dripping from his hands.

His bruises were immediately taken care of with bandages, and Adam kept asking him things, hoping in an answer. _What happened? Who did this to you?_ And John pointed at DD, napping near the sofa.

“Dogs?”

He shook his head.

“… _Wolves_?”

John nodded. And in his head he knew lying was bad. And in his head Jack wasn’t alright, as he looked at his hands covered in bandages, Adam’s worried face; he didn’t want _John_ to make anyone else suffer.

It was fine if John could fake.

It was fine if just _him_ , just _John_ , could be happy.

In the forest there were no wolves. His demons danced around him to keep Jack company as he tried to suffocate the panic of loss, of distance, of feeling helpless to his far away sons. He felt Ishmael rise from his slumber. He demanded blood.

He had to kill a deer and tear him apart; and throw up; and cry

And feel like nothing changed, nothing will ever change.

He called for his mother the same way a desperate child does. His brain filled with images of his children taken away, and their screams, their tears. He was alone and yet his head was a commotion of voices. All of them, all of these characters, all of these names, they were all Jack, but Jack _wasn’t_ them.

_Jack just wanted to rest._

_Jack just wanted to die._

But he couldn’t, not yet. His sons, _his Joy_ , they needed him. So he walked back home drying the tears and put on the John mask again. John was doing so good but he just looked tired all the time. John was a good man, John was a good father.

And as Adam told him to take a shower and get out of those dirty clothes, Jack reached out for the old man and hugged him.

“Oh, dear.” He heard the Russian address the gesture, holding the bulky man in his arms, “You’re scared?” Adam asked, and the shapeshifter didn’t move, his head resting on the taller man’s shoulder. _There, there_ , the pats on his shoulder trying to comfort him.

_It’s natural to be afraid._

\--

John was a good actor, even though sometimes Jack would pop out, triggered by something or someone. Because of his brain damage, nobody really expected him to behave like a functional human, anyway, so these little accidents were something regarded as _normal_. Even if he had horrible nightmares, he would just retreat into his box at night.

After some years, he mustered the strength to go to the old men’s bedroom and wake them up because he needed comfort, he needed to feel real. He would have chamomile tea with two sleepy elderly people, saying _sorry, sorry,_

_Sorry,_

So many times till he felt sleepy too. It happened, sometimes over the course of the years, that he would end up falling asleep in the old men’s bed and they had to sleep around him, in a way or another. A very hard task, seeing the size of the shapeshifter.

His children were growing, and growing, and they became very much independent from their father. They had school friends; they would stay out for hours, even sleeping over to someone else’s house. Humans, maybe.

And for John it was okay, he would kiss his boys goodbye and wave at them. _Have fun,_ John would say.

And for Jack it was not. _Please stay, please don’t leave, don’t go_

_Please stay_

_Please,_

“Ahab.”

“Yes, John, what is it?”

“I” he nervously shifted his weight on the sofa, trying to make the words come out from his mouth, “I have very bad nightmares.”

“I see. What are they about?”

“Monsters.”

He felt the nausea engulfing his body, as if he could still smell those putrid cells.

“Can you tell me about them?”

But he couldn’t speak, because

 _It was hard to describe his life._    
_To pick out the correct words to define the horror, the jarring pain, the disgust._    
_It was hard to describe his damage._  

_And so, Jack decided he just wouldn’t._

\--

His days weren’t just made of pain, of course. There were days where Jack and John were the same person, and he helped Kaz cook and went for a walk with David and he wouldn’t shapeshift, not even once.

In these good days he would eagerly write in his workbook, probably the fifth or sixth one he was filling, full sentences, sometimes taking up to two hours to compose a paragraph.

_I went with David in the forest today._

_He was holding my hand. He is such a tall boy now. He told me about some birds we saw, they were small and grey._

_He told me he met another boy and his name is Frank, he is older. Frank can turn into a fox and David likes him._

_Frank sounds like a good child._

The workbook looked more like a diary now, the spatiality of the pages and the writing was back to a regular page-to-page. Jack even wrote the dates on top of every sentence, drawing or picture he would put in it.

Adam and Kaz understood how fond he was of memories, so they would take photos of his sons and him whenever there was the occasion. Little polaroid pictures of Eli and George making faces at the camera, David and his Frank friend doing a peace sign because Kaz had told them to. A picture of Jack smiling, sitting on the steps of the front door.

They were calming to look at. Jack would remember his own photo album, back at his old house and a picture of him as a baby held by a very young Joy was framed in the corridor.

“My mother”

Jack said, looking at the pictures and sitting near Adam on the sofa. He would make very long pauses whenever he was talking, but they were very coherent and Adam didn’t mind waiting.

“Would have loved my sons.”

“I’m sure of it. You did a very good job with them.”

A bittersweet smiled appeared on the shapeshifter’s face as he skipped through other photos.

There were days where Jack and John were the same person and captivity seemed like a distant, noisy nightmare, far away. They couldn’t hurt him anymore, while he looked at his own peaceful face depicted in the frame.

“I wish” he whispered, catching Adam’s attention again, “she was here.”

\--

After four years, Jack had regained most of his memories from when he was a teen, a boy and a child. He started to mix his real personality with John’s good behaviour, and his children loved that. They had never met this man, they never knew what kind of person their father was and this was thrilling.

He was kind of snarky sometimes, as his favourite smiles were the ones full of sarcasm. He started being very physical, especially while playing with his children, and the play became some kind of training as they grew older.

His sons learnt about their grandmother by his slow and awkward lines, how she trained him before them; how strong she was, her eyes proud and how she was also very stubborn, that’s why they would fight quite often.

Jack started considering the old men’s house as his home, so he was always busy with either Kaz or Adam’s task of the day. Ahab said it was a very good thing for him to have a full day; and he was right. The days where he didn’t have to think were days where he was feeling whole.

In the summer of their fifth year there, as the kids went to the lake with some friends and Jack was playing with DD in the front yard, Adam came out from the house with his revolver and a bunch of cans. He just shoot some bullets to the cans, every now and then. That’s what his storage was for.

A lot of revolvers.

A lot of cowboy related goods and memorabilia.

Jack liked the revolvers but never understood the cowboy part.

The old man walked to the shapeshifter, who was catching his breath on the green grass with the dog trying to lick his face. DD barked happily at his master, receiving a good pat on the head.

“Do you want to watch?”

He smiled to Jack from above, the man sweaty and smelling like a bear and a dog mixed together. His bulky body rose from the ground, shaking his head and then added a nod.

The Russian took out his revolvers, doing his usual stunt of spinning them. Both DD and Jack sat there, head turned to a side until the human was done with his little show.

“So?”

Adam was a very odd man.

“Pretty good.”

Jack commented; it was impressive how the Russian could do that, actually, but at the same time _why_ would he do that. He reached out his hand to see the gun and, since it was still empty, Adam kindly gave it to him.

“ _Beretta Stampede. .45 long colt._ ” The man inspected the weapon and immediately stated the precise nomenclature for it. Another thing that resurfaced from his memories was his extensive knowledge of fire weapons – which he now found kind of useless to begin with. Of all the things he could remember, his brain chose that.

“You never get one wrong, John. That’s amazing.”

Adam complimented him and lightly patted his head, before starting to load the pistol. He lined the cans up on a lifted wooden plank they decided to make for when the family wanted to eat outside.

The old man shot the first can down. A loud sound filled the air and vanished just as quickly as it came. Jack sat on the ground, gazing at the tall man firing three other bullets. Jack thought it looked fun, just shooting at nothing, and he did shoot as a kid – granted they were never real guns. He let out a grunt to catch Adam’s attention and he stood up from the ground, stepping closer with his hand out.

“I try?”

He said, modifying his intonation to make it sound more like a question or a request than a demand.

“ _You_ try?” Adam repeated, surprised, “Can you fire a gun?”

And the man’s eyebrows rose even upper at Jack’s serious nod. “I see. Alright, be careful.”

The old man wasn’t exactly ecstatic at the idea of his friend shooting, but he stood close enough to Jack to be there if anything happened. Jack’s stance was odd, slouched onwards, but the grip on the gun was correct and his arms relaxed.

Jack was calm and he tried to aim with his good eye, even though it was hard since it was on his left side. And then he shot. The bullet got right into the can, a perfect ten out of ten.

_But why was the sound making him feel ill, when he had just witnessed Adam’s shoots just minutes before?_

_Why was he shaking?_

_Why was he suddenly in the snow and down in his arms his children, small and scared?_

_And there is the corpse of the wolf woman lying in her own blood and melted whiteness, and the smell of decay and ugliness filled his nostrils as he hears the gunshot, too close_

_Too close_

_His head screamed_

_TOO CLOSE_

The gun dropped from his hands and Adam’s voice kept repeating _John? Did you get hurt?_

_John? John!_

Blood ran down from his nose, white noise dirtied all sound,

_John, answer me!_

Adam tried to avoid the unconscious body to hit the floor too hard, propping it up with his own arms, to no vail. The shapeshifter was too big, the human too old.

_Kazuhira call an ambulance!_

The Russian’s panicked voice.

_Blackout._

\--

“This is why your father might have some episodes in which he loses consciousness.”

Ahab sat in his office chair, Jack’s three sons were right in front of him. The twins were now fifteen, but still acted way older than they looked. David was looking straight to the psychiatrist’s face, his hands gripping on his jeans. Eli was standing up, arms crossed while leaning on the wall.

Eli wore his hair long and wild, and his clothes of choice were all tank tops with different jackets on. He had a black necklace dropping down on the white of today’s tank top. Nobody knew how he could bear the cold that well.

David had very short hair and he looked rather plain in comparison to his twin; usually he would have a hoodie or a sweater on, mostly on blue tones. Sometimes he smelled of cigarette but he swore it was Frank smoking around him.

They already were as tall as their father.

George just turned thirteen and he wasn’t a child anymore. He fully understood, or at least he tried, what his father situation was and what it meant. His glasses always looked too big on his chubby face, since puberty still hadn’t hit him. The boy was staring at his shoes, seemingly hiding himself in the coat he was wearing over his white button shirt.

“Wasn’t he better?”

David asked expectantly.

“He _is_ doing better, from what we could gather, but his problems are degenerative, in a way.”

“He bled from his nose.”

George’s voice slipped into the conversation, and his brothers turned to him.  Ahab gazed over to the boy and replied with a _yes, he did_.

“He has never done that.”

Eli made an annoyed sound with his mouth and tried to shut his baby brother up.

“George, that’s a goddamn detail, the thing is that dad fain—“

“ _It’s not a detail_!” the boy almost shouted back, angrily looking at the other one. He stood up, clenching his fists.

“Don’t you care if he dies? If he faints and nobody is there to help him?”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?” Eli growled in response, stepping over to his brother with a menacing stand. At the same time, both Ahab and David stood up.

“Boys, calm down.”

“Of course I fucking care if he dies, but what about you? What about this _leaving him alone_ bullshit when you’re the first to stay out as much as you please lately.”

“Eli, quit it.” David held his twin with his hands and George kept staring angrily at Eli, with teary eyes. But he didn’t cry, on the contrary, he just stomped out of the office.

“You are an idiot.” David punched Eli on the shoulder.

\--

The room they were making him stay was just like any other, and he had to share the space with another patient. Luckily, she was another shapeshifter and he only had to stay overnight.

“Eat your apple. I’ve cut it.”

Kaz said, placing it on the bed table in front of Jack. He sighed and took a piece of the fruit, looking at the man sitting on his side.

He heard the other patient talking in a quiet tone, in what sounded like Spanish, to her baby brother, or so he assumed. The boy kept shouting his replies and being shushed in response. _Chico, estamos en un hospital._

The woman seemed fine, except for her broken leg.

Jack slowly munched the chunk of apple, his stomach a little upset and a slight headache was bothering him. But the doctors said he had to get something in his system, so he tried to focus his thoughts on the good taste of the fruit. The room’s door clicked open and a huge, bearded man entered the room. He was welcomed by the woman’s smile and her brother’s excited voice, _papá_.

Behind the figure, Jack’s own son showed his round face, walking towards the bed.

“Did Ahab finish talking with you?” Kaz asked, watching George sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes. No greetings, not even a word.

He had really started to look like his father, their faces were almost identical.

Jack moved the little bed table on his side, receiving his son’s hug and a kiss on the cheek. The shapeshifter couldn’t hold George like he used to, since he had gotten taller and bigger, but he wrapped his arms around the boy nonetheless.

“He finished with me for sure.” George replied, turning his head to his acquired grandfather. His expression looked a bit troubled, as if he had cried. Kaz sighed and raised his glasses with two fingers to rub his eyes.

_Dad, next time,_

Kaz’s ears caught the boy’s voice.

_Next time you faint, at least do it somewhere soft._

When he opened his eyes again, George was pinching his father’s cheek with a frown on his face. His father whispered an apology with a chuckle.

“Like a sofa.”

“Now, don’t start thinking about an actual _next time_ though.”

“Bed.”

“Stop it!”

George lightly bumped his fist on his father’s head in a playful way and his father smirked, taking the boy’s face with a hand and squishing his cheeks. George’s eyes shut close with a frown. He felt his son’s hands batting his shoulders and he released the grasp. Jack kept an amused face as George was scolding him.

Kaz stared at the two having their little shenanigans and leaned his sitting body on the cane he was using that day. He smiled, seeing John tickling his son as if nothing had happened.

It was surprising how much this man had changed over the years.

\--

Eli sat down on a row of stairs outside of the branch where his father’s room was. He had a hand covering his face, while his other hand was holding a juice box he had bought earlier at a vending machine. He heard footsteps behind him, but didn’t really acknowledge them. In the end, that was a staircase and people were bound to come and go.

But he felt someone slightly pushing his back with what seemed like a foot. Eli, outraged, turned around frowning.

“What the hell—“

His twin was there, his serious face always reminding him how he was the one who overreacted to everything. Sometimes he would wonder if David was a robot, if he was even a person.

“Ah, it’s you.”

He turned back to face the stairs as his brother sat down near him.

“You should apologise to George.”

“What for? He started it with his nonsense.”

“You’re older.”

Eli clenched his fist. He didn’t want to snap on his brother, but the mere thought of their father going back to behave like a savage, like,

_Like some kind of animal,_

Scared him to his core. He didn’t want to be the consolation to his father’s grief anymore, if that meant shoulder the man’s psyche as a whole. He would never forget those ten years of suffering, those ten years of thinking that his was his life, that there would never be any way to see _who_ their father really was. Years of behaving like adults and not knowing how.

And now that _John_ was a man who laughed and smiled, who was able to comfort them and feel like a nurturing figure, Eli didn’t want to lose him. He didn’t want to lose his father again.

“Fine. I’ll apologise later.”

David reached out a hand and placed it on his brother’s back, where he previously pushed him. His twin just frowned more, staring at somewhere undefined. And he erupted.

“Why must he always end up like this? _Why can’t he never be alright_?” he frantically turned to his brother. “Did you ever wonder _who_ did that to him? He couldn’t possibly have been born like that. Have you never felt like wanting to punch this shit out of his brain?”

“Of course I thought about that. But the only things we know about dad are” he tried to recollect whatever they had gathered over the years thanks to Ahab, “things from when he was our age. And he sounded just fine.”

“This is so frustrating. Why,”

Eli had to gulp down tears, covering it with a prideful stern look, “Why can’t he just heal.”

_Why can’t he just heal?_

David rubbed his brother’s back.

There were days where David would dream with his eyes wide open, dream of his father being good and healthy. This dream father would take them to school and not be scared. This dream father didn’t need to hold Adam’s hand when they happened to walk into town – and the visits there didn’t have to last for a maximum of two hours before he started to freak out.

This dream dad would be grumpy and snarky, but charming at the same time. They would all live together and he would have a job, go out on his own, have friends.

There were days where David would dream with his eyes wide open, dream about a father he would never have a chance to meet.

But that was okay.

“I don’t know. But we should make the best of the time we have left. It could be a year or it could be ten, Ahab never set a date.”

Because the father they had was resembling more and more the dream that would never come true, and that was okay.

David looked at his brother, while he was equally keeping his tears from dropping down his cheeks.

\--

Seasons passed by and another year was behind everyone’s shoulders. The old men had realised that, now, both the twins and George never had a birthday party.

The birthdays they had put on their documents, back in the days, were just numbers the children had selected. Jack had no idea of when they were born, but he had quantified the year.

The twins were summer children, June boys.

Their younger brother decided for early December.

As for the father himself, he was presented a calendar. He picked his real birthday, someday in spring. May. Adam decided for a birth year for him and he noticed it wasn’t too far off from his real one.

For their sixteenth birthday, the twins invited school friends. There weren’t many, about six or seven teens, but they had fun just eating cake, playing some videogames and taking a hike in the forest. Also, besides Frank, all the other boys and girls had never met the twins’ father.

Jack was soon tired out by the party and the people, but he diligently behaved and shook everyone’s hand. _I am John_ , he would say with his gruff voice, _nice to meet you._

It was the first time that Eli vehemently shook his father off as he tried to kiss his cheek as a birthday wish, _dad, my friends are looking_. The teen was frowning, a slight flush on his face. Jack thought that was odd.

“Teens are like that, John.” Kaz laughed at the man’s puzzled expression. “They act all embarrassed, all the time.”

David would still let his father have a good cuddle in front of others, but at the same time he had tried to cut it short when both Frank and a girl named Holly came looking for him. Dave apologised and pushed his father away, sneaking out from his hug. Jack’s lonely eye watched his son awkwardly approaching his friends, trying to put on a nonchalant expression.

The man became pensive, excusing himself from the outdoor party to retreat into the calm of their bedroom. Nobody seemed worried about this, since his tiredness was the norm.

The once guest room had become their full bedroom, four years ago. They had bought a bunk bed for the twins and now George and his father were the only ones sharing the queen size bed. The place itself now started to feel a little cramped and most of the times at least one of his sons would sleep in the living room, doing whatever. 

He closed the door behind himself, walking to the bed and sitting down. His eye felt fatigued, so he decided to lay down and rest. He had started to worry about the fact that his oldest sons were acting like that. He had never thought of himself as a cuddly person, nor he was overdoing it. A least, as of these past six years.

_Were they embarrassed by him?_

He sighed, trying to keep calm. There was nobody talking in his head, today he was John and today he was Jack. _Teens are like that_.

Being the centre of someone’s world, being their focal point, the person they want to have close when they’re crying or need comfort. Their dependency on him, their small hands, small paws, asking to get picked up because they want their dad, because they’re afraid. Because they love him.

Jack opened his eye and looked at his own hand, raised above his face.

His sons’ hands weren’t small anymore. There had been a day, years ago, when he had put down his sons and never picked them up again.

They were growing up.

Some teardrops fell from his eye as he laid on the bed with a bittersweet smile on his lips.

_They are growing up._

_Look, mum, look,_

_They are okay._

And as he cried of joy for his sons surviving childhood and having normal, healthy relationships with other people, inside he knew. He knew his deeds were coming to a close.

\--

Seven years, and it was a sunny May day.

_Jack’s birthday._

Kaz slapped George’s hand from snatching a piece of the birthday cake with his finger. A long wooden table had been set outside and a plastic tablecloth was shielding it from any food or liquid that may fall upon it. Plastic cups and plates covered its length, Sigint and Ahab were chatting while drinking some beer, at the middle end of the table.

Adam was finishing preparing some things in the kitchen as Eli just sat around, not helping. _Can’t you_ at least _take out the trays? But that means_ moving _, grandpa. Yes, and you will move or my foot will kick your butt very soon._ So, the young man huffed, putting down the magazine he was reading to start assembling the appetizers on the three trays placed on the table.

“Do you like it?”

“I think you look very good.”

Eva had her hands on Jack’s shoulders, David sitting on their bedroom’s queen bed overlooked the scene. The man was looking at his reflection on the wardrobe mirror.

Jack was wearing high waisted jeans. Actual jeans. Black. Eva had put him in a white t-shirt, tucked inside his trousers, making it fall out as she picked a size too big for the effect. His shoes were also black, kind of elegant.

He had chosen, that day, for his hair to be slicked back and a single lock fell over his forehead, while his beard was perfectly kept in a fluffy but orderly way. His face had started to show more wrinkles, over the years, and Jack intendedly stared at the man in the mirror.

It was kind of simplistic of him to look at himself and think _that is not a boy anymore_. But well, that was his first thought. He looked down to his clothes, sniffing his own cologne.

He really looked human.

He was standing upright with no troubles, his resting stance looked natural; his expressions always looked a bit lost, but a stranger would just think he was probably sleepy or just worn-out.

“It is nice.” Jack said, adjusting his eyepatch.

“You should let Adam see you.” Eva chuckled, as David jumped on his feet. Eli’s voice echoed in the corridor. _Hey, we’re gonna eat without you_.

\--

_You look so fancy._

Adam grinned, patting John’s back.

_Look at the birthday boy._

Kaz turned to him, as he sat down on a chair. Quiet was on the other side of the table, sitting between Ahab and Jane, her greeting was a silent wink and an okay sign.

_He’s handsome, isn’t he?_

Eva proclaimed, as if he was her own son, or her own fiancé. He never understood where the old woman would trace the line. Jane replied with a _very much so_. Ahab smiled, _you look way more professional than I look on a daily basis_.

John blushed a little, letting out an _eh_ sound as he smirked in embarrassment. David took out a lighter from his pocket,

 _Where did you get it?_ Kaz asked as the boy lighted up the candles on the cake.

_Somewhere. It’s alright. Don’t worry about it._

Adam walked on the other side of the table to lift the cake a little, four candles on each side. A big forty written with chocolate icing crowned the white of the cream. Actually, Jack had turned forty-two today, but that was close enough.

They started singing happy birthday. But Adam’s voice, Adam’s face, they slowly changed in a matter of seconds.

_Happy birthday to you,_

All the other voices disappeared, only Adam’s remaining,

_Happy birthday to you,_

And it morphed into a more feminine voice, his face becoming someone else’s,

_Happy birthday dear_

_Jack,_

Suddenly Jack was in a cosy, dark room. His house’s kitchen. His mother was singing happy birthday. The cake had seventeen candles on and she had baked it as a surprise. He had just come home from school and the whole house was dark.

His last birthday.

She looked at him with an amused face inviting him to sit down with a gesture of her hand,

_Blow the candles._

Jack thought this was real. That _everything else_ had been a bad dream. It was there, in front of him. He could feel the chilly air of the house and the scent of his mother. _I’m okay. She is okay._ _I’m seventeen and nothing bad will happen. I will finally have my next birthday. I will finally be eighteen and we will eat cake,_

_And we will be together. And it will be boring but fun._

But as he got closer to her, the room became darker, and darker.

Something was running down from his nose and he touched the liquid with a finger. Red. He looked down, his white shirt had blood spills on it.

His legs gave in and he felt the ground under himself, but someone else had softened the fall. His eye was staring at the deep blue of the sky.

_Oh, mum, the sky is so pretty during this time of the year._

_I wish you could see it._

A butterfly passed over him as other figures started to reappear into his field of vision, panicked voices. He closed his eye.

_Dad, no, dad!_

_Wake up!_

_Dad!_

\--

_I love the sounds of the wind in summer._

_I love seeing my sons doing their homework._

_I love waking up and not feeling tired._

_I love when I am not lonely._

_I love when Adam asks me to help folding the laundry._

_I love when Kaz asks me my opinion on economy and waits for my reply patiently._

_I love how I can write again._

_Ahab, I will stop writing at some point._

_I loved talking to you._

\--

Ahab was sitting in a chair in the dining room, pointing at the last written paragraph by his patient – and now friend.

“This is a bit ominous, don’t you think?”

John nodded, his face as serious as ever while he toyed with a piece of paper with his fingers.

“You’re just forty-three, don’t drag yourself down.”

Jack was forty-five. He kept falling down with blood running from his nose and his sense of reality was again at risk. His writing wasn’t messy, nor was his wording, but he was slowly, but noticeably, having harder and harder time speaking. He wasn’t selective anymore. His sons would be suffering this silent plague themselves as their father was sinking in his own illness.

Every time he fell, he would re-live pieces of his life. It seemed like something random could trigger these accidents, so they weren’t able to deal with it too well. The whole family had decided John should always be with someone, even though usually he would spend most of the times with the old men.

Now, his older sons were nineteen and had just graduated from high school. They had started looking for a job, finding luck as warehouse workers. It wasn’t a permanent job, of course, just something to not be weights on the old couple anymore.

George was still in high school and he had the best grades in his class. His teachers had advised both Adam and Kaz that he should pursue college.

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

_I miss my sons._

_I miss being able to hold them, to protect them._

_I feel empty, as if I had a hole in my heart._

Jack shook his head. He stood up,

“Cake.” Ahab looked at him, “I will” he stumbled upon his words. It happened a lot when he was clearly not at peace with himself. “I will get you some.”

The psychiatrist didn’t feel like eating much, but if that meant his friend could get something to do, then fine.

Jack walked to the kitchen and he heard the TV on in the living room. Kaz was napping on the sofa and Adam was sitting on the other end of it, his husband’s feet on his lap, covered with a blanket.

The man took out a knife and the cake from the fridge, cutting two slices. The knife sliced down, easily, but Jack’s hand was still in mid-air.

_I miss my sons._

_I hope they won’t miss me._

\--

“Dad” George’s whines caught his brother’s attention, “Dad, it’s not that I don’t like you hugging me but—“

Dave looked over from the computer to find his little brother – now not so little anymore, as he was nineteen and started to grow a beard, which made him look exactly like his father but with glasses – held by their dad’s tight embrace.

The man was sitting on the carpet, like most of the times, and had his son squished to his chest. His head was down.

David came to the rescue, patting Jack’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Dad, hey. We’re not cubs anymore.” The young man, now twenty-one, moved his hand over to his father’s, almost forcing it away from George’s body. _What’s wrong?_ Eli’s voice came from the kitchen. _Nothing, dad just doesn’t want to let go of George again._ David’s gesture was firm, but very gentle. He knew there was nothing bad in his father’s intentions, but he was always treating them as if they were still ten years old. As his son moved his hand away, Jack let out a low, melancholic growl, something he had started to do again in the past couple of years.

“It’s okay, dad. Let him go.”

The youngest shapeshifter sneaked out from the hug, whispering _I’m free_. He repositioned his glasses and turned to David. He was petting their father’s head,

“Eli and I are going to town for work.”

Jack gazed over into his son’s eyes, repeating his words.

“Work.”

“Yeah, remember? We changed shifts last week, so George can stay with you.”

His face sank down, staring at the carpet again as David left his hand on the man’s back.

“Will you be alright?”

Jack nodded and George, sitting near him, tried to console the man.

“Grandpas will be home soon, too. We can take a walk if you want.”

_I feel like this hole is getting deeper and deeper_

_And the people in my head are getting louder and louder._

\--

David and Eli were waiting at the bus stop for their ride to town. Dave had lit up a cigarette, taking a puff out. The silence of the wilderness surrounding them was overwhelming at times, but they both felt some kind of sick nostalgia for it.

“I feel bad for dad.”

The brown haired twin stated, the cigarette resting in two fingers of his right hand.

“There’s nothing much we can do.” Eli had his hands in his pockets, looking down the road as his hair fluttered on the gentle spring breeze. “We gotta work, I don’t want to be more of a dead body for the old men.”

He exhaled.

“He’s forty-five but he can barely speak. But I guess he looks kind of happy most of the times.”

David took another drag, smoke coming out from his nose.

“Do you think he found some kind of peace?”

Eli kicked a rock from the ground to the asphalted street.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

\--

Sometimes you forget death is even something that happens in life. You try to find your own stability, living every day as if death would never concern you again.

As if death would only concern _you_ as a person. As if death would only be allowed to _you_.

And then death happens again,

But you have no idea how to feel. You have no idea how to react.

So the hole in your heart spreads to your whole body and you become an empty shell of voices, and you wish death would take you.

And you wish, and you wish

You wish death would come for you and finally make you comfortable in your own skin again.

\--

Ramblings on the phone, John called.

John never calls.

John never used phones.

His voice was something he had never heard before, as if his throat was knit with a rope and he gurgled words.

“Kaz,” John sobbed, John sobbed so much on the other side,

“Kaz is not moving.” He managed to say. _Kaz is not breathing._

_Adam_

_Adam help me_

_Adam_

John didn’t make any sense anymore. Eva saw the colour drop from Adam’s face as he hoped Kaz had just fainted, as he hoped this was just something they would remember in a while as a scary moment. 

And when they got home, twenty minutes later, Eva had already called the ambulance and they almost got there at the same time.

Adam entered his house, their house, and John was curled near the lifeless body of his husband. Kaz faced upright, as if the other man had turned him in a last hope to revive him. His glasses were shattered on the floor. His eyes closed.

John was in complete shock and his eye moved to Adam’s bewildered expression.

_Please Adam, bring him back._

The man cried in an incomprehensible tone, as if he was a child asking his mother for help. The paramedics got into the house and asked John to stay away. Eva’s very old body had to be wall for John’s desperation.

_No,_

_No,_

John yelled, when they moved Kaz’s body on a stretcher. _Don’t. Don’t touch him. Leave him._

_Don’t take him away. No._

Adam stared with wide eyes at this whole sad, sad show. _This is not how Kaz would have wanted to go,_ he thought, _this is so stupid._

_This is so stupid._

_This is so stupid._

_I hate phone calls._

_This is so stupid._

\--

Heart attack, they said. The doctors told him he died instantly, he didn’t suffer. Adam didn’t cry in front of anybody. He seemed confused, mostly. Kaz was going to come back, in a way or another. He believed this lie for about two days, until they presented him the arrangements for the funerals.

When he had to look at his husband’s body in a tuxedo, ready to be cremated. Adam placed a pair of new sunglasses in his casket. He didn’t want to get near that dead thing. That wasn’t his husband, that was well wrapped meat.

He wished he had never seen him.

He wished he had never witnessed his death.

At the funeral, a Buddhist funeral of Japanese tradition like Kaz wanted, Adam saw his husband fall into the flames of the crematory.

David couldn’t look, staring at his feet. His tears were silent and composed. Eli, on the other hand, would fiercely look at the burning flames. The Buddhist priest was chanting a sutra, in a dragged, lamenting tone, only interrupted by George’s sobs, holding Adam’s hand. Eva was also looking at the burning coffin but her eyes fell on John, the only one sitting down amongst many other guests.

He looked as lifeless as Kaz’s corpse itself. It seemed as if he had lost all the progress he had done in these years. Eva had to help him get dressed up and his only response was crying, without emotions. He was empty.

The people managing the crematory said they should return in a couple of hours to take the ashes, but Adam sat down. For two hours, he stared at the flames slowly consuming Kazuhira.

\--

Every time Jack closed his eye, the only image that would appear was of Kaz grasping for air, telling him to call Adam as he collapsed on the floor. It was the first body he had seen in so many years and everyone in his head started screaming and endless concert of sorrow.

After two weeks, it was late at night and he was sleeping in his box, trying to find some comfort, looking at his, now old, twisted picture of his mother. He got up to go to the bathroom and found the kitchen’s lights on.

Someone was crying. Adam. His head peeked into the room to find the old man looking at a photo album with a cup of matcha tea in front of him. His position reminded Jack of that day when DD died of old age and David was arched over the dog, weeping.

He had never seen Adam crying. It was weird, it didn’t feel like an emotion he would have, since it didn’t match with the man’s whole behaviour.

“You know,” Jack was startled, as Adam had never, in all these years, noticed his presence when he would sneak around, “he was such a hardworking man.”

The Russian’s voice was a little broken but he managed to regain his composure, cleaning the tears away with a finger.

“When we got married he kept saying that was his biggest mistake, because I had made him spend a fortune.” Adam let out a low, gloomy chuckle. Jack appeared into the kitchen light, slowly moving near the man to sit down in the nearest chair.

Adam pointed at a picture, a very old one. He tapped his finger over it, “This one,” the photo depicted Adam as early as his twenties, short hair, sitting on a low wall and near him Kaz, a head full of well-kept slicked hair with only the front side was allowed to pop up. He was grinning to the camera, his sunglasses covering half of his face, while Adam had a sort of grumpy or annoyed look.

“This one was our first picture together. He was trying to smile at Eva, since he would hit on her every now and then. He was twenty, here.”

John rested his head on the man’s shoulder, getting a slight caress on the cheek in response. The shapeshifter pointed at another one on the following page.

“This one? I took it. We were on vacation in Costa Rica.” The picture had Kaz sitting on the sand, wearing speedos. His sunglasses were resting on the top of his head. He was looking at the sea, palms in the background. “He loved the place. As soon as I took the picture he begged me to delete it because he didn’t look _cool_.”

Adam skipped some other pages and he found one of Kaz in his late thirties holding Adam’s hand. It was winter and they were wearing big coats. Kaz was grinning again, doing a peace sign. It was a group picture with other people, a blond girl was doing the same peace sign near him and a few others were too.

“He is not coming back, John.”

_This hole is sucking out my whole being._

\--

David sat in front of Kaz’s grave. Technically, they had scattered his ashes so this lonely, tall pillar with his new dead name stood in the backyard, a little hidden under a tree. An unlit cigarette popping out from his mouth.

“I know you never liked me smoking. But you know, if it wasn’t this it would have been alcohol.”

He let out a dry laugh without any mean to laugh at all.

“Adam changed.”

He looked down at the screen of his phone, looking at the time.

“He cut his hair a bit, you know? But he kept the moustache.”

Half a year had passed and only now, Dave had the courage to face the grave. Kaz’s death was like a blow in the face; it really was as if his father had died. Another one, sort of. When they had called him, he was out with Frank, just enjoying some time off work. And he refused to look at Kaz’s dead body.

He refused to acknowledge the image of death with this man.

“I miss you.”

Dave closed his hand on his phone, tightly, thinking he could break it. He hid his face in his knees,

“Dad changed.” The young man’s voice had started to become raspy because of the smoking, and his face lines were very similar to his father’s, but he was slimmer. He frantically passed a hand in his hair. “He, he always changes. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know, grandpa.”

The cigarette dropped from his mouth as he gritted his teeth, curling himself on his knees.

“I can’t take this all on my shoulders alone. Not again.”

The wind rose as if Kaz wanted to comfort the boy from the grave. _You’re such a brave kid, David._

\--

Adam changed. Nobody knew how, but he did. It seemed like the flame he had inside had just burnt out. People from the outside thought he had taken the loss pretty well, seeing how he was still showing his poker face to every stranger or acquaintance, even some friends. He fooled Ahab, in a way or another, into thinking that after a year he had learnt to live without Kazuhira.

But at night the bed was immense and it seemed like an ocean dragging him down, to dreams he didn’t want. The face of his husband was flames in the crematory, was a corpse in the corridor, was broken glasses.

The time he would spend with John was mostly outside, now. Taking long walks as the shapeshifter kept his bear form for the whole time. John had started to drift away, and Adam knew. He saw it, as sometimes the man wouldn’t even reply, just like the early days.

Adam reached out a hand, placing it in the middle of the bear’s head. He lovingly caressed it, smiling.

“Where are you going, my friend?” he asked him, even though he was standing in front of him; no previous topic had been brought up by the man.

John sniffed Adam’s face and bumped his big head onto his. The old man held onto the bear’s fur.

\--

“Are you dying?”

John asked, sitting on the chair besides the hospital bed Adam was resting in.

“I am afraid so, my dear.”

Two years had passed since Kaz’s death. Adam’s health had never been an issue, even if he was  pretty down all the time, but he had suddenly fell ill, as if his body had suddenly decided to give up. _Old age_ , the doctors explained them.

George had taken flowers into the room, white Bethlehem’s stars. _They mean hope_ , he explained his father, who was intendedly looking at the white petals, slightly touching them. George was twenty-one and he was a big young man, growing a beard just like his father’s. He was studying law in the college in town and working at the local library. He was such a good son, Jack felt rather proud.

He picked one flower, as his son was making small talk with his grandfather, trying not to think of the old man’s conditions. Jack remembered the white flowers in his house’s garden and how much his mother loved them.

“Eli will come in half an hour.” George was looking at his phone for the time before returning to face the old man, who looked frail, as he had never been before. He placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder, knitting his brows. “I don’t really want to leave you alone, but I think dad needs to rest.”

Adam let out a small laugh.

“Right, make him sleep. I won’t go anywhere.”

Jack was lost in his thoughts, as if his mind was just so barely keeping it together in this late night hour. He was keeping in his hand the flower he had previously plucked but he had bent forward, his forehead resting on the metal of the sidebars of the bed. He wasn’t listening.

George had to touch his father’s back, waking him from his numbness. The young shapeshifter noticed how the man’s hair was slowly turning grey near his ears; it wasn’t so blatant, but it was surely there. He spoke with a soft voice,

“Dad, let’s go home. We’ll visit again tomorrow.”

Jack shook his head, reaching out his hand to hold Adam’s. The Russian held it and looked at his friend.

“I will be here.”

_It’s not true._

“Go home now.”

_It’s not true._

_I am becoming the hole, I am nothing but emptiness. All the voices in my head, they are unrecognisable. I am tired and I don’t want you to leave._

_But if you do,_

_If you do,_

_When you do,_

_Please wait for me._

_I won’t keep you waiting._

\--

There are two graves in the garden. They sit asymmetrically, different one from the other, just like the two old men were. There are flowers around them. Eli cleans them every week.

Adam had left all the property and the money to the three brothers, splitting it equally among the three. For John, he had left one for his hospital care, his medicines or whatever he would need; David managed it.

Ahab was also appointed to look over the family.

Jack was alone in the house, for the first time. It had happened that there would be a twenty minutes gap between one son changing turn with the other. The twins were busy with work, George sometimes stayed at a friend’s house overnight because of classes.

Jack roamed the house, as a bear. He acted as if he was a stranger in this place.

As if he didn’t fit in the picture.

_Did he ever fit in the picture?_

He entered the old men’s bedroom, silent and empty. The bed was made, as if the couple was just gone somewhere for a vacation and would come back soon. He moved closer, dragging his paws on the wooden floor and he sniffed the sheets.

Jack rested his head on the bed, looking over to the end pillows. His eye saw the couple, Adam reading as Kaz bickered with him – but mostly just grumbled- about whatever reason. And he looked at the bear, _what are you looking at, uh?_ He leaned down and patted the animal’s nose with a slightly amused smirk.

Jack cried, as a bear. He let out low growls, as his sniffs intermitted, like sobs.

_I’m alone again._

_I’m alone again._

_Mum,_

_Mum, I miss everyone._

\--

Jack turned fifty and his sons would end up becoming more and more paranoid about leaving him alone, trying to manage their own lives to deal with him.

He thought this was terrible and embarrassing. He would encourage the brothers to do whatever they wanted, he could stay a hour alone if they needed him to. They would reluctantly succumb to their own needs to just _live_.

And Jack accepted it. His sons were adults now. They were safe, integrated and could always turn to Ahab if they needed help.

So, Jack started his preparations.

He took out a clean sheet of paper and a pen and began to write.

He told his children that he was okay without the box now, they could put it back in the garage or use it as they needed it better. He neatly folded his model patchwork picture and put it in the trashcan. He cleaned up his things, everything becoming clean and neatly organised.

As this happened over the course of six months, his children just thought he had found some kind of hobby to let his brain deal with the immense silence of the house.

On September 2nd, 2104 Jack pinned a letter on the front door before leaving the house.

Leaving his sons.

Leaving this life.

\--

“Oh shut up!” George pushed Eli, who let out a chuckle for whatever reason they were discussing. They had just got back from town, groceries in their hands.

“What is this?” David picked the note from the front door, as Eli stopped to peek over it. George entered the house, calling for his father. _Dad, we’re home_. He placed the groceries on the kitchen table and kept calling for his father, looking for him.

Dave opened the not sealed letter and his eyes started their journey through the piece of paper. As both he and his twin kept reading, their faces became more and more confused,

More and more shocked,

More and more panicked.

George came running to the front door again.

“Guys, dad is not home. He’s not here!”

Eli just snapped the piece of paper out from his brother’s hands.

“Is this some kind of joke?” he shouted, “Is he playing us?!”

George took the letter for himself to read and he started shaking his head vehemently, repeating, _no, this is fake. No, this is not true. No. No._

“What the fuck is he thinking?” Eli kept shouting. But Dave stood still, petrified. He heard George starting to panic, telling his brother to call Ahab, that they had to search for his father. He was going to die, otherwise. _They had to do something_. And Eli took out his phone.

Dave turned to the forest and started running.

He shouted

_DAD_

_DAD_

_DAD_

As loud as he could. As loud as humanly possible. And he turned into a bear and he cried for his father. And he cried out begging for an answer; he stopped before the big wall of trees where the forest went deep.

_But there was no reply_

So Dave was a human again while he cried, knees and elbows down on the ground. He sobbed for his father. Maybe if he acted differently, he could have fixed this.

Maybe if he was more attentive, he could have saved him.

Maybe

Maybe

Maybe, now his father would be happy.

\--

_My dearest sons,_

_I have never properly introduced myself._

_My name is Jack Sears, I am fifty years old. I was a boy like you, once. I used to love guns and joke with my mother about becoming a soldier one day, since the military always needs big shapeshifters like us. I went to school in a small town and I would sneak out at night sometimes to bring my mother’s cigars to my friends, even though that meant walking for forty minutes straight._

_I lived with my mother, Joy. She adopted me, but I always felt like I belonged to her._

_At the age of eighteen, I stopped being a boy._

_My mother and I were taken captives, separated for the longest time by an organisation called XOF. They were all humans. They made shapeshifters fight one another._

_XOF called me Ishmael when they wanted to strip me off my identity and become an animal._

_XOF called me Big Boss when they made me kill her. When they made me kill my mother. The fight had my brain permanently damaged._

_I am an animal._

_David and Eli, you were born in 2082. George in 2084. I named you like this._

_You were experiments, Solid, Liquid and Solidus. Born as cavies, destined to fight._

_You brought Joy in my life again. I remember your hands on my face and your giggles. I remember them, always. I cried in that cell, rotting away._

_Then freedom came. I was sick._

_I raised you in the wild. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to protect you from humans. From their filthy hands. I wanted to keep you safe, but I was sick._

_I was sick,  at the time I didn’t understand I would drive us almost to death._

_I am so sorry._

_I never told you anything. I hoped I would forget, I hoped I could heal. I hoped my mother’s memories would just vanish from my mind. My memories of horror. They never went away._

_Adamska and Kazuhira helped me feel alive, even though I am still sick. They called me John and I was reborn, yet again. I have so many names and I think it’s too much sometimes._

_I have been writing this letter for six months. I cannot write well for more than an hour a day. I am sorry I could never teach you like a father should, I ended up only as a weight to you children._

_You are adults now, you are amazing. You have jobs. You went to school._

_You became what I never could. Men. Humans. Free._

_But now the forest calls me. My mother is in the woods, she is smiling and waiting for me. She has been, for the longest time. She is anticipating our reunion and I must go. It is time._

_My deeds are done, my sons._

_You will be the light guiding me off. There is no place where I belong anymore._

_I love you, I will always love you._

_Farewell._

_-Jack_

\--

Eli sat in a chair at an office of the police station, while the chief looked through a file box labelled _XOF Case 2084_.

“So you said _Sears_ , right?”

“Yes.”

The chief scrolled a list of names and stopped towards the end.

“Joy Sears, it says she is deceased.”

Eli clutched his fists. The chief turned the page.

“Jack Sears.” His heart skipped a beat, his father’s real name. Their real surname. “Missing.”

“I see.” Eli gritted his teeth and stared at the chief’s face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know; after all these years, the answers were right here. In front of him. But he was scared, he was scared of what he might learn from this.

He was scared to know what they had done to his father.

“Can I read about the case? I just really want to know what happened.”

“I think you can on media like old articles or documentaries. They did make one, about five years ago.” The chief appointed the name of the film down on a piece of paper and handed it out to the young man. “The case itself is restricted to the police personnel, I’m sorry.”

Eli nodded, for the first time in his life feeling like anger was unnecessary. He let out a sigh, looking at the piece of paper in his hands. It titled, _Went Missing (2099)_.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

Eli stood up and bowed his head a little, excusing himself from the office. Right outside the police station, winter hit him with the deep Alaskan wind while he started to walk off. He took out his phone and dialed the number for his twin.

_David, I found us._

\--

The sky is too big for me alone. I look at the stars in the chilly autumn nights and I try to count them. But you are there and every step I make I feel one year of my life falling off my body.

I am a snake changing its skin.

I walk miles, I hunt and sleep in the open. I feel closer to you, every step I take. _Closer_.

Sometimes I wonder where my children are, what they are doing. If they miss me, if they are angry. I walk every step I made in those ten years of aimless wandering.

It’s not autumn anymore, winter is coming and the air is cold. Everything is dying, I am dying. But it’s alright. You are with me, you are _so_ close.

You showed me the way.

It’s spring, flowers bloom and I think I will not see another season, I will not see another spring.

But I see you.

I’m home. I’m home, mum. I see the house I was raised in, it’s still there, in the middle of nowhere. Almost half a century abused its walls and roof, and yet it still stands.

There are no white flowers in the garden anymore; the windows are broken and it smells like dust and decay. But I love it, it’s my house. It’s where I left off.

I walk into your room and there’s almost nothing left. Thieves or people in need stole most of the things, even the bed. Yet, I find a bandana, _your_ bandana. It’s dirty and ruined by time, but I love it. I love it so much. It’s like holding myself, it’s like holding you. It was in a drawer, I remember its greenish colour shine bright on your forehead as you trained outside on good days, when the weather was warm.

I enter my room.

There is just the bed, some broken toys from when I was a child on the ground, tore up posters of things I don’t even recognise anymore. Time has stopped in this house. I lie on the bed with no mattress on, no sheets, no pillow. I hold your bandana and I close my eye.

When I open it, it’s my eighteenth birthday, the first I never had. My room is the usual mess, clothes everywhere; I probably stayed up too late eating snacks and reading. You come in, your face serious as always. You are putting up an angry expression to mess me with me, as you roughly ruffle my hair.

 _Get up, birthday boy_ , you say.

And then you smile.

I close my eye again.

I open it. The room is old and dying.

I am old and dying.

I hold your bandana as I rest my eye close once again, sighing

_This is good, isn’t it?_

My hand lets go, the piece of cloth slowly falls from my fingers. I will be covered in dust soon, and in time, _I_ will become dust.

My mother will be sitting beside me, singing her song.

Whispering in my ear,

_Be comfortable, creature._


	10. Epilogue: How Strange, Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title's album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1xv2cspJI  
> If you want a good atmosphere for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnbeZkAgNEE
> 
> Thank you for reading, it was a good ride. A wild ride. I'm happy you were with me on this journey.

_Bip Bip Bip_

_Bip Bip Bip_

_Bip Bip Clack_

Someone stopped the alarm clock’s futile cry for attention and Jack moved in his bed, facing the wall as if nothing had happened. It was then that a hand lightly slapped – it was still a slap, though- his head and he opened his eyes in pain.

“Ouch! Mum, come on!”

“This thing has been ringing for _twenty_ minutes. Are you going to get up or not?”

“It’s seven in the morning!”

Joy stood close to her son’s bed, her face framed in a frown, waiting for her son's reply. She prompted him again.

“So what.”

“It’s _Saturday_.”

“ _Get up_.” She ordered, taking her son’s hand and lifting him up so he would sit upright. Jack groaned falling back down very dramatically. _Fine_ , he huffed.

“Look at this mess.” Joy opened the palm of her hand towards the complete chaos of her son’s room and harshly sighed. The bedroom had white walls and there were many posters from books and war movies, while some shelves still had the boy’s childhood lingering on them with soft toys and baby pictures; the rest was resembling more of a small alcove for a young recruit or a stranding survivor. Books about forest animals and how to hunt or collect them, magazines on venomous plants; an extensive collection of firearm magazines was sprawled under his bed. But at the same time he had some peluches on the bed, a green frog and a yellow duck, while he was curled up with his favourite teddy bear from when he was still a child.

Jack’s still soft face had an annoyed expression depicted on it, passing a hand on his chin, a little bristly because of his stupid teenager hairs – it didn’t really resemble a beard yet.

“Mum, I’ve been awake for like five minutes.”

“You should have cleaned this yesterday after school.”

Jack lifted a finger to the air.

“I never clean up my mess.” He stated with a monotone voice.

“Say it again and I will personally cut that finger off.”

The boy’s hand weakly fell on the bed as he mustered the strength to get up, scratching his head. His mother placed her arm around his shoulders, trying to be affectionate but whatever left her mouth wasn’t any kind of praise.

“Take a shower, you smelly cub.” And she kissed him on the temple, leaving the room to go back downstairs. Jack narrowed his eyes and smelled himself, grabbing clean clothes from the wardrobe. As soon as he got out to the corridor he shouted, _I don’t smell that bad_. _Just take a shower already_ , he heard his mother’s voice from downstairs.

\--

“Look, I’m just saying—“

“You say way too many things, Jack.” Joy was circling things on the newspaper. She usually read the Russian one, since she was fluent in the language, but today it was the usual one.

“ _But_ you shoot so I should too.”

“I shoot for a job, you shoot because you want to look cool.”

Jack grumbled and stuffed his mouth with his toast, pouring some orange juice in the glass in front of him. He gulped whatever he had left in his mouth.

“I just asked because it’s gonna be my eighteenth birthday. Something special. You know.” His voice became weaker and softer as the sentence went on. His mother let out a sigh and closed the marker she was holding with a snap sound, before using it to point at her son.

“Let’s have a deal. When you turn eighteen, I’ll allow you to go to the shooting range once a month but you’ll have to stop whining like a baby about it.”

Jack pointed his finger again as a response.

“Thrice a month.”

“Once.”

“Twice?”

“Once.”

“Deal.”

Jack thought that was a good victory. He tried to make a treaty with his mother and he still got something back. The boy smirked to himself as he started drinking his juice.

Eight o’clock, someone rings the doorbell.

“Are you waiting for Python?”

“Yeah, but he’s coming for lunch.”

Joy had started peeling a pear for herself and placed the fruit back on the plate. She cleaned her hands and swiftly went for the door. Jack followed his mother disappearing from the kitchen. He snatched the newspaper for himself and sat with his feet on the chair, checking out the front page. He scrolled the first page with a look, stopping at a small column. T _hree other shapeshifters went missing_. Joy’s voice was a murmur in the background. _Yes, we are two. Bears. Yes, I’ve heard about that. I see. Alright, thank you._

And she came back just as she went, passing behind her son and ruffling his hair, before going to wash her hands. They still felt sticky for the fruit.

“Who was at the door?”

“Government people. They’re checking on the numbers of shapeshifters, they said.”

“Is it because of the kidnappings?”

“Possibly.”

Jack kept skipping through the pages and stopped on the comics section. He laughed at a very bad joke, his humour being pretty terrible to begin with. His mother caught his attention again,

“I’m going for a walk. Do you want to come?”

\--

Joy was a beautiful, creamy bear. She wasn’t as big as her son would eventually become, but she was fierce and most of her weight was made of muscles. Her claws were long and sharp, her teeth perfectly made to kill. And yet, for Jack, she looked as the most comforting sight in the whole world.

She had stopped to smell something on the ground, some kind of scent Jack was uninterested about. He was petting his mother’s fur with a hand and moved close to her head, slightly tugging at her ear. She sniffed out, loudly, and turned her muzzle to her son, poking her nose with his.

Jack laughed and shapeshifted too, bumping his head towards Joy’s. He was the purest kind of grizzly bear, brown like the woods. He was still a little smaller compared to her, but in a couple of years he would have surpassed her in size. Definitely.

He started a playful fight, biting the ear he was previously bothering. His mother’s reply was a growl and she lifted her paw,  trying to slightly hit her son every time he’d come closer. It quickly became clear that the fight would move onto a real fight in a very short time, and Jack found himself under his mother, defeated; like every time. He never won.

The boy turned back to his human form, panting in his now sweaty clothes.

“Oh, come on!”

Joy smirked and helped her son up on his feet again. “I was this close to beat you this time.” Jack said, holding his mother’s hand and they ventured a little further in the forest. She just kept her smile on.

Jack looked at the sky above them. It was so pretty during this time of the year. Late April.

_Look, mum, a butterfly._

\--

Jack slammed his cards on the wooden floor of his room.

“Straight flush.”

“What the _fuck_ , Jack.”

Another taller and rather bulky young man sat on the floor, right in front of Jack. He had very, very short black hair. So short he almost seemed bald.

“Pay up, Python.”

Python, called such because of his surname, was two years older than Jack. His friend was convinced that, somehow, he could turn into a real python even though reptile shapeshifters were unheard of, just because, one day, Python himself had joked about it. Jack just believe many unnecessary things.

“I told you I’m gonna pay you tomorrow, stop pushing me.” The older boy grumbled, throwing his cards on the floor before starting to recollect them to have a new shuffle. He eyed his friend and smirked.

“You know, you should try and beat Gene at poker. He’s loaded, you could buy yourself whatever. Cigars, for instance.”

Jack shrugged.

“I don’t really want to have anything to do with him. He’s weird.”

Python was toying with the cards, not really expecting to play another game. Not really expecting to win anytime soon, anyway. He leaned on the bed’s side and gestured towards Jack.

“Ever thought on the fact that you’re also pretty  _weird_?”

Jack smacked Python’s knee with a full fist and a loud whimper filled the room, cards flying everywhere on the floor. The victim started touching his sore knee and angrily looked at the other boy.

“See? This is why.”

Jack had a bit of a violent behaviour in him, even though most of the times he just _looked like_ he was going to punch you in the face. Python stood up and opened the door shouting, _Joy, your son is attacking me_ , at which Jack just jumped on his friend, dragging him down in a panicked state.

_Shut up!_

_You deserve it, bully._

His mother’s voice made him shiver.

_Jack. Do I have to come upstairs?_

Jack looked at his friend, now on the floor with his hand on Jack’s face to keep him away. Python grinned,

“Call the debt off.”

“What!”

And he dramatically resumed his loud whimpering, _ow, ow, Joy!_

“Fine, fine, fine!” He whispered and then raised his voice again, “No, mum! Everything’s fine.”

He slammed the door closed on the sound of Python’s victory laugh.

\--

The bus was moving slowly, on its way to town. His friend on his side, nudging at Jack’s shoulder. He pointed with his head to the kid who had just jumped on the vehicle, accompanied by two twin sisters.

“There’s Gene, you should strip him to his last penny.”

Jack stared at the blond haired boy, as old as he was, sporting a fancy hat; the two sisters where fifteen years old, second year in high school. He frowned, kind of annoyed by just the look of him.

“I told you, I don’t want to deal with him.” He murmured back, “Plus, those twins give me the creeps.”

“They are kind of spooky.” Python seemed to have reached an amusing realisation since a mischievous smile popped on his face. “What if they are vampires?”

Jack seemed to freeze, turning his head to the older boy, his brows knit in worry.

“Why would they be _vampires_?”

Python just shrugged and leaned back on his seat to enjoy the rest of the ride to town, closing his eyes.

“No idea. Just a thought.”

Jack tried to distract his mind from this _absurd_ and _completely fabricated_ , _silly_ image of those two girls as creepy, grotesque blood sucking monsters. Failing. He glanced back and forth to the front of the bus every now and then, thinking _they can’t be. They just can’t. But,_

_what if._

\--

Five in the afternoon, the sound of the bells from a nearby church made a good background for the two boys, sitting on a bench facing the main square. Jack was having a hot, steamy _crêpe_  with chocolate filling. The sun was setting; his mother had told him she would pick him up at six, after buying some groceries.

“You got chocolate all over your face.” Python snorted and Jack candidly ignored him, sticking out his tongue to lick his lips. He handed over the half eaten sweet to the other.

“Do you want some?”

“No, I’m good. Besides, haven’t you just spoilt yourself dinner?”

The young shapeshifter just shook his head, taking another bite. He stared down to his boots, making the tip of his feet meet, creating a soft clapping sound.

“Mum told me I can go to the shooting range in two weeks.”

“Is she really allowing you to do that?” Python seemed surprised since Jack wore his best smile, unusual for his rather frowny face.

“She said that when I turn eighteen I can start using a gun.”

“ _Did she really say that_.” He asked, unamused; Jack grumbled in response, a little embarrassed, nibbling at his crêpe.

“No. But she did say I can shoot once a month!”

And Python nodded, knowing Joy wouldn’t let her child near a gun with such ease, knowing the subject. He was good with air guns, outstandingly good. But at the same time, Jack was rather impulsive, still. He was just a kid, afterall.

“I’m gonna come and cheer for you.”

“Thanks.”

_\--_

_See you tomorrow._

_Sure. Ah. The debt is completely off, right?_

_Yeah. Just because you were lucky._

_You’re such a kind guy._

_\--_

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, letting the cold of the spring nights wrap his arms around everything. Jack sat sprawled on the passenger seat. He looked rather sleepy and had dozed off a bunch of times during the trip back home.

“Tired?”

Joy asked, throwing a quick glance at her son, who just sat upright to wake himself up. He yawned and mumbled something. His mother’s eyes were on the road, but she just so swiftly turned to pat her boy’s head. He let out a small, amused giggle.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Leftovers.”

“But you _just_ bought things.”

“That is all.”

He sighed and took out his phone from his coat’s pocket, checking for messages and whatnot. _Don’t abuse your internet_ , she reprimanded her child, _you’ll be out of it until May otherwise_.

It had been a rather uneventful day, that Saturday.

As soon as the car stopped in front of their house and Joy got down, she felt weird. The air was odd. Just like in the morning, when she sniffed an unfamiliar smell on the ground. _I hope it's nothing_. Jack quickly got a bag of the groceries from the back of the car and walked among the white flowers of the garden, lighting up for the moonshine, until he reached the front door.

_Jack,_

He heard his mother say in a rather uneasy voice,

_Come back here for a moment._

And she was taking out her phone.

_Mum!_

Jack turned to his mother. His voice holding a worried tone as he backed off.

_The door is open._


End file.
